them! That's how I coddle and pet them! (looks around) This is a nice situation for Susan Jane Jones, Captain of Company A, First Regiment, Militant Suffragettes! But all is fair in Love and Votes for Women! This academy is the last stronghold of the old-fashioned woman, and from in it the tender young girls learn the vicious habits of keeping house, being good housewives and attending to their own affairs as their grandmothers did. From this root anti-suffragism might spread over the whole world, and I have crept in, like a spy, to corrupt and destroy it. Woman must and will rule! (enter KATE pouting)

KATE. (not seeing SUSAN) I don't care! I don't care one bit! I'm never, never going to speak to John Mason again as long as I live. I think he is just too horrid for anything, (takes off coat and hat and throws them on sofa) I just hate him. I hate every boy that ever lived, I do! I think they are mean, overbearing, egotistical things. (wipes her eyes)

SUSAN. (clapping her hands once) My sentiments exactly! I so consider all men.

KATE. (startled) Oh! I did not know anyone was here. Good morning! (curtseys) Please, you won't tell Grandma Gregg what I said, will you? (with head on one side) She wouldn't like it. (picking at her fingers) She says females should admire and worship all males.

SUSAN. Humph! Fiddlesticks! Absolutely exploded theory. Latest theory is, females should abhor and despise all males. What's a man? He's a worm. A poor silly worm. Now, here! (takes KATE by arm and leads her across stage) We understand each other. You have felt the cruel oppression of a man!

KATE. I—I—I just think John Mason treated me real mean, anyway.

SUSAN. Woman, how else do men ever treat us? We are slaves. But we must be free. You think I am the new Professor of Husbandology, don't you? You think I am here to teach you how to treat husbands, don't you?

KATE. I did think so.

SUSAN, (threateningly) Oh, I'll teach you how to treat husbands! (PAULINE enters and overhears, unseen. She gradually comes closer to them) I'll teach you how to treat all men. For ages man has crushed us under his cruel heel.

KATE. Has he?

SUSAN. But we will trample him under foot.

KATE. Will we?

SUSAN. We must throttle him. We must crush him.

KATE. Must we?

SUSAN. Pooh! He's a worm. We will do without him. We will drive him from the land. Absolutely. Man is a by-gone institution. I class him with the stage coach and the dodo bird. Woman can do his work better than he can. He must be driven from the land.

PAULINE. But, now, mam, if he's driven from the land, he'll be taking a death of cold in the water.

SUSAN. So much the better. The object that should burn in every true woman's heart is the utter extermination of man. (to KATE) You have felt a man's cruelty. (KATE wipes her eyes)

KATE. I don't see why boys have to be so mean.

SUSAN. And you, too, you poor creature. Have you not felt the heel of the oppressor?

PAULINE. Heel of the oppressor? Mercy sakes! That reminds me. Grandma Gregg sent me for to get the Ideal Husband and take him down cellar and black his shoes for him.

SUSAN, (triumphantly) You see! Man makes slaves of us all!

PAULINE. Has any of you seen the Ideal Husband? Grandma Gregg said he was in the Classroom conversin' with the new Professor.

SUSAN. (carelessly) Oh, he's gone to his club. I mean, look behind the screen.

(PAULINE gets the dummy, and carries it out, its feet dragging behind her on the floor. Exit PAULINE.)

SUSAN. My child, the time for the great revolution is at hand. Woman is about to take her rightfully supreme place in the world. In me you see one of the leaders of the Militant Suffragettes. Can I count on you?

KATE. I don't know. I think John Mason treated me just too mean—Oh! here Comes Grandma Gregg.

SUSAN.