"Give me a cigar," shrieked a tenth.

"Give me a vote," shrieked an eleventh.

"Give me a pair of trousers," shrieked a twelfth.

"Give me a seat in the House," shrieked a thirteenth.

"Daughters of the horse-leech," I made answer, taking advantage of a
momentary lull, "I am not in a position to give away any of these things.
You had better ask at the Stores." But the tempest out-thundered me.

"I want to ride bareback in the Row in tights and spangles at 1 p. m. on
Sundays," shrieked a soberly clad suburban lady, who sported a
wedding-ring. "I want to move the world with my pen or the point of my
toe; I want to write, dance, sing, act, paint, sculpt, fence, row, ride,
swim, hunt, shoot, fish, love all men from young rustic farmers to old
town _roues_, lead the Commons, keep a salon, a restaurant, and a
zoological garden, row a boat in boy's costume, with a tenor by moonlight
alone, and deluge Europe and Asia with blood shed for my intoxicating
beauty. I am primeval, savage, unlicensed, unchartered, unfathomable,
unpetticoated, tumultuous, inexpressible, irrepressible, overpowering,
crude, mordant, pugnacious, polyandrous, sensual, fiery, chaste, modest,
married, and misunderstood."

"But, madam," I remarked--for in her excitement she approached within
earshot of me--"I understand thee quite well, and I really am not
responsible for thy emotions." Her literary style beguiled me into the
responsive archaicism of the second person singular.