leading review, but with little result. They bedizened themselves with
frippery, shrieked like parrots on all occasions and interpreted the
motto of the time, "Carry On," in a sense deplorably remote from its
higher significance.

_George_. I think it seems, Mamma, as if the young girls of those
times must have tried to make themselves as unpleasant as possible.
How thankful I am that Mary is not a Flapper!

_Mrs. M_. You may well be. But allowance must be made for the
misapplied energy of our ancestors. If the Flappers excite our
disgust, their subsequent treatment moves our commiseration, since the
Sumptuary and Disciplinary Laws passed by the House of Ladies dealt in
drastic fashion with the offences which I have described. As a matter
of fact many Flappers grew up into excellent and patriotic women. I
remember my grandmother saying to me once, "When I was sixteen I had a
voice like a cockatoo and the manners of a monkey," but nothing could
have been more discreet or sedate than her deportment in old age.

_Richard_. Did the Flappers speak English?

_Mrs. M_. Presumably; but, judging from the records of their dialect
which have come down to us, their speech was made up of a succession
of squeals rather than of articulate words, and has so far defied
the efforts of modern philologists. Indeed speech seems to have been
almost at a discount, owing to the immense popularity of the moving
picture play, then in its infancy and as yet unaccompanied by
mechanical reproduction of the voices of the actors. Indeed at one
time it was said that there were only three adjectives in use in
Flapper society--"ripping," "rotten" and "top-hole," I think they