Rebel women

the Wa

nly when I took my courage in both hands and a money-box in one of them, and went to stand there every day f

d unexpectedly that the rain seemed almost out of breath when it came; for this turned the bit of western sky that blocked the end of the street into a fine country sky, that ought to have swept across a moor instead of scudding past a London Tube station. But when it snowed, or rained long and uncompromisingly, and when the wind blew swift and cold without blowing up anything interesting with it, there were no street effects and no smiles, and the publ

rm, and shook my box invitingly in front of cold and distant people who refused to be invited, how very much she might have had to grumble at. The queer part of it was that she was not grumbling now; she had ceased to grumble, in fact, for the very reason that made me understand for the first time why she should grumble. Standing there beside her, in God's

irst held aloof; so did th

wisdom of explaining that what I was doing was going to help her in the long run, but decided that under similar circumstances I should prefer a more practical and

ll, and in the chase that followed I came off victorious, and was able to

in' used to it," she suggested, pulling the

arst! What are they doin' it for?" said t

s useless limb after him when he came to show me anything uncomplimentary about the Suffragettes that happened to appear in his pink newspaper, I could but marvel at the though

doing it. He never failed to wink joyously to his friends if a male elector s

" he would say conclusively, in denial of the usual contention of the an

ellow-hawkers waited with gri

ing up her lorgnette to read the inscription on the box. "Oh, I quite believe in your

their ken, in which helplessness had a market value. It was pleasantly illuminating to find, however, as the week wore on, that they had come to accept me as an equal, not because I could hold my own against the passer-by, but because they saw me, like the

s experiences that would not generally be called either nice or quiet. It was only when I caught his

l time gracefully. Time seemed to be killing a good many idle people, I thought, during the week of days that I stood outside that Tube station. The habitual hawker, of course, was a loiterer by profession; so was the friendly constable who remarked, "Well, you ladies do have to face somethink, you do!" referring, I imagine

mething about the weather to the policeman, something about the winners to the boy who sold pink information about winners; but he did not spend a halfpenny on the information, nor did he look as though he had spent a

than half an hour, asked me if I had seen a lady in a green hat. I think I had seen hundreds, which was not very helpful; but the enquiry made an opening, and I shook my box gently and seductively

people throw you something before they

elieved all her life. She had so many claims, she said. I understood what she meant when one of the claims, wearing a mountain

erheard, as they went. In about half an hour they were back again, and the girl in the green mountain was dropping two-pen

nd ended on a sigh. "Nothing,"

suppose I succeeded in sounding a

n, and not have to go on wasting

one, her ridiculous hat bobbing up and down in the crowd like a Chinese lantern on a st

ho seemed so bent on cheating their nature out of everything it demanded of them. It was always a pleasant shock when women and girls, wearing the most preposterous hats and the most fearsome of purple-spotted

es, discussing with a patient companion the rival qualities of j

t," agreed t

ook handsomer," proceeded the old

aid the companion hast

ly. "It isn't likely I should put a four-three edging on my

m the top of an omnibus, and a money-box not being so handy as a tambourine, I spent the next few seconds grovelli

treet fighting with you," was the astonishing remark

in her little grey eye. But she shook her head and returned to t

I thought it would be easy to remain on friendly terms with my fellow-hawkers of yesterday; and with that idea in my mind I took an early

with the exception of the flower lady, who s

he market, they did-thank you, lady, much obliged, I'm su

who had almost offered me her shawl, a

at the western end of the street was all right. But I had been put back in