The parson.  The mistake they make is in trying to write, and especially to “stump-speak,” like men; next to an effeminate man there is nothing so disagreeable as a mannish woman.

Herbert.  I heard one once address a legislative committee.  The knowing air, the familiar, jocular, smart manner, the nodding and winking innuendoes, supposed to be those of a man “up to snuff,” and au fait in political wiles, were inexpressibly comical.  And yet the exhibition was pathetic, for it had the suggestive vulgarity of a woman in man’s clothes.  The imitation is always a dreary failure.

The mistress.  Such women are the rare exceptions.  I am ready to defend my sex; but I won’t attempt to defend both sexes in one.

The fire-tender.  I have great hope that women will bring into the newspaper an elevating influence; the common and sweet life of society is much better fitted to entertain and instruct us than the exceptional and extravagant.  I confess (saving the Mistress’s presence) that the evening talk over the dessert at dinner is much more entertaining and piquant than the morning paper, and often as important.

The mistress.  I think the subject had better be changed.

Mandeville.  The person, not the subject.  There is no entertainment so full of quiet pleasure as the hearing a lady of cultivation and refinement relate her day’s experience in her daily rounds of calls, charitable visits, shopping, errands of relief and condolence.  The evening budget is better than the finance minister’s.

Our next door.  That’s even so.  My wife will pick up more news in six hours than I can get in a week, and I’m fond of news.

Mandeville.  I don’t mean gossip, by any means, or scandal.  A woman of culture skims over that like a bird, never touching it with the tip of a wing.  What she brings home is the freshness and brightness of life.  She touches everything so daintily, she hits off a character in a sentence, she gives the pith of a dialogue without tediousness, she mimics without vulgarity; her narration sparkles, but it does n’t sting.  The picture of her day is full of vivacity, and it gives new value and freshness to common things.  If we could only have on the stage such actresses as we have in the drawing-room!

The fire-tender.  We want something more of this grace, sprightliness, and harmless play of the finer life of society in the newspaper.

Our next door.  I wonder Mandeville does n’t marry, and become a permanent subscriber to his embodied idea of a newspaper.

The young lady.  Perhaps he does not relish the idea of being unable to stop his subscription.

Our next door.  Parson, won’t you please punch that fire, and give us more blaze? we are getting into the darkness of socialism.