Rebel women

or Women

we would not be amateur shopkeepers. The success of our venture, we argued solemnly, depended on convincing the neighbourhood that we meant to be taken as seriously as any other tradesman in the str

y well what they might have the pleasure of showing him, before they asked him what it was, but that their unbroken front and commercial zeal had entirely put it out of his head. Two of us thereupon beat a wise retreat and left the field to the militant member of our committee, who promptl

ness over the tobacco-pouch; "but I can wear the tie, perhaps, when

k for itself," said

ve, until we perceived that the tie was oozing forth in all directions

the customer who came, not to buy, but to shop, the opportunities open to the customer for falling short of the shopkeeper's ideal of her being greatly multiplied when the shop at which she shops is one for the dissemination of suffrage literature and not for the display of spring millinery. Also, on the initiative of the militant member of our committee, it was resolved that only one person at a time should serve any one customer, and that if a secon

seemed to be there on the assumption that if you want to buy something, one shop is as good as another in which to seek it. A good deal of useful experience is probably gained in this way by the one who shops; but

did not reveal itself to the haughty, disapproving lady who was already in the shop, giving advice to us all. She left at once, clearly convinced that really good unsoug

ything"; we had no job to give, and told him so-a little curtly, I am afraid, as a consequence of many previous interruptions from

he pleaded. "I've been to pr

his generic description of a mild and blam

at can we do for you, and

eman stood on the point. "Said he couldn't help me himself," was the r

ber. "He's especially nice, that one. He's t

ess by this calm announcement on the part of an amiable-looking shop as

nder,' he said; 'they'll help you if anyone c

our militant member. She, however, always maintained that it was an error of judgment, if not of taste, on our part, to present the policeman who had once arrested her

to reach the latch, and had to satisfy his sense of humour by assuming that the name of every woman in the shop, not excluding the charwoman, was Pankhurst, a quip that afforded exquisite joy to the little crowd that loved to hang round our doorway, besides advertising the object of our shop very nicely. Sometimes, the limitations of the street repertoire became a little tiresome. Admitting that the phrase "Votes for Women" could not be said seriously too often in a reactionary world, we felt that it was out of place when hurled as an original remark through the letter-box by someb

spiral staircase, which looked perilous, I suppose, to any one who saw us for the first time steering a tea-tray down its ramifications, but always seemed to us pleasantly emblematic of our mounting aspirations. Curious

d agility and a lightning camera enabled him to procure a picture that did not resemble an advertisement of the Children's Holiday Fund. All this was in the nature of a Roman holiday for the neighbourhood, but w

in self-conscious, affectionate attitudes that did not remotely convey the business-like

t there is no higher reward for a rebel woman than that of standing in a thin blouse, at a street corner, to be photographed, blown about by a

ess, after that," sighed one of our shop assistants wh

lly feeling like a genuine tradesman when I took down the shutters and agreed with th

't," agreed a chorus of

pen, and a boy came in and fl

ting with change, please,

ow, or if we would sooner wait till we got them. He did not say he had no wish to see women sitting in his Parliament. He just stood

e looked up from the column of figures she had hastily pretended to be adding up when the shop bell tinkled, seemed to take in the boy's request with difficulty, called "Forward, dear, please!

and whistling tunelessly. Her procedure had, indeed, not erred in a single detail; and he saw nothing