"I have always ruled," observed the little
man, sotto voce.

The young man with the goggle eyes had a
tongue too large for his mouth, and as persons
thus gifted always like to hear themselves talk,
he proceeded frothily enough.

"The result of my experience has ever been
that Woman, being the inferior animal——"

"Certainly," interposed the little man.

"—is never so happy," continued the goggle-
eyed striker, "as when she is ruled by MAN,
her natural superior. This is a truth which
has been too much lost sight of. Woman has
become too much exalted in the social scale.
This will be so no longer. Henceforth," said
the young man, rolling his eyes in terrible
consciousness of power, "she is subjugated,
she is conquered."

"I observe, gentlemen," remarked Pierre,
who had not spoken before, "that you all
appear to have had great success with the
ladies, and that you seem to have found
them very easy to manage. Now, with me, I
confess it has been different. I have always
found this sex, which we call weak, and gentle,
and soft, to have resources of their own of no
contemptible sort, and especially a power of
holding out when once their pride is assailed,
which makes me sometimes doubt the ultimate
success of the Strike itself." ,

These remarks met with much opposition.
No one would hear a word in disparagement of
this great movement.

"But we can't strike for ever," urged
Monsieur Pierre, still full of misgivings.

"We have no intention of giving in," cried
several strikers, speaking at once.

"Well, then, suppose the other case," Grandal
went on. "Suppose they give in, or at any rate
profess to give in, and then when we, satisfied
with our victory, come also to terms, what may
not happen then? I confess that I view our
position with alarm."

The members of the fraternity rose up in arms
in a moment. Monsieur was an alarmist. He
overrated the power possessed by the opposite
sex. He underrated the superior force of MEN.
Monsieur Legrand stood on his toes.

"The fact is," broke in the little man, "that
our friend is evidently unfortunate. It has not
been his habit to triumph in these amiable
contests with the ladies, in which we are all
sometimes involved. With me it has been different.
It is, I suspect, a question of eye entirely.
There is a certain power of eye which some men
possess, before which women quail."

There was a big, powerful man, with a bushy
beard, seated at an adjoining table to that
belonging to the strikers. He was playing at
dominoes with his little boy, and seemed to be
much amused by the conversation of the brotherhood,
and especially by the remarks which came
from the very young man with the goggle eyes.
Indeed, he appeared to have the greatest difficulty
in restraining his laughter.

"Come," said the powerful man, addressing
his son. "Come, Adolphe. It has struck ten.
We must go home, or we shall get a scolding
from mamma. Good evening, gentlemen," he
continued, addressing the brotherhood. "I've
been married some years, and I don't think you'll
find your Strike answer."

There was a great noise and chattering kept
up among the strikers after this interruption,
and it was some time before they returned to
their usual dignified style of conversation.

When they did get back to it, it was
perhaps on a bigger scale than ever. The little man
said that their neighbour was a melancholy
specimen of the hen-pecked tribe—most hen-pecked
men, by-the-by, were big, or vice versa.

A gentleman with a red nose and redder cravat
corroborated these sentiments, as, indeed, did
all the other strikers who happened to be
present. In fact, these powerful gentlemen
ended in being quite uproarious in their great
consciousness of strength.

Yet, when our friend Pierre got to be alone
again, it must be acknowledged that all his
lowness of spirits returned in redoubled force.

Ill.

One morning Madame Beaucour was
surprised by an application from her daughter, so
unexpected that it took her breath away.

"Mamma," the young lady began, "is Louise
going to the market this morning?"

"Yes, dear child; she is going as usual."

"Mamma, I should like to go with her."

"You—why, Eugénie, what are you thinking
about?" replied Madame Beaucour, with wide-
open eyes.

"I have taken it into my head," said Eugénie,
smiling.

Of course she had her way, though madame,
who was for keeping her daughter in cotton, did
all she could to dissuade her.

"What can have come over the child?" said
the worthy lady, in colloquy with her husband,
after Eugénie had departed. "It is so unlike
her character to want to engage in an occupation
of the sort. And now I think of it,
Monsieur Beaucour, she was dressed in a manner
altogether at variance with her usual style. She
had on old things of last year, which I thought
she had given away long ago. What can it all
mean?"

Monsieur Beaucour shrugged his shoulders.

"Des caprices," he said, in a resigned tone;
"des caprices!"

Meanwhile, the young lady and the old
servant had started on their expedition; the latter
being nearly as much astonished at this strange
freak as Madame Beaucour herself had been.
She was more suspicious, though. " There is
something underneath it all," she said to
herself.

"Louise," said mademoiselle, as they walked
along side by side, "I have been thinking a
little, and I have come to the conclusion
that a young girl ought to learn something
about housekeeping, marketing, and that sort
of thing."