Woman’s Sphere, I lunched with the Suffragists.  Each character of the Suffrage Club was as clear as a figure cut on a sapphire.  The president, a matron of sixty wearing waving gray hair and dressed in black, with plenty of white lace under her chin, had the air of a woman used to command a large family and accustomed to plenty of money and to good society.  Her voice was the agreeable barytone of her years, its thin tones entirely gone, and her good English was like gentle music:  nevertheless, an occasional strong tone or gesture revealed her determined will.  The Suffragists were handsomely dressed, were self-possessed and appreciative of each other’s company, and were of all ages, one being a plain young girl quietly looking on and enjoying the world more than a self-wrapped belle is capable of doing.

But to my tale, which is to me more absorbing than Rob Roy, Robinson Crusoe and Boots at the Swan combined.  Of all our visitors I preferred Uncle Nathan Stene.  Not that I liked him personally.  He was the typical rich man:  I should know he was rich wherever I met him.  There are thousands like him:  they despise me utterly.  Uncle Nathan had a scorn for poor people.  He disdained whole States that gave him a bad market, and regarded young fellows who smoke and go to the theatre as beggars’ dogs.  He was of middle height, with reddish complexion, sandy hair and eyebrows, quick, sharp gray eyes, and features of a short, clean, close aquiline cut, with thin, dry lips—­a man of iron, pig iron.  When young he might have been facetious, but he had concentrated his energies entirely on money, till there was nothing left to go in other directions, and his humor was now as sombre as the grin of a hanged man.  He had self-conceit, which is a talent when combined with some other qualities.  Doctor Johnson’s observation, that to make money requires talents, is true:  a dull man cannot do it.  Uncle Nate had to remember thirty thousand articles in his business of wholesale druggist.  He was a perfect devil-fish for sucking the goodness from every business he was concerned in—­banking, railroading, and so on.  He belonged to the Chicago Board of Trade, and was particularly useful in getting those fellows in Indianapolis on a string, sending the wheat up, up, until the Hoosiers had made a few hundred thousands, and then, when they thought they were going to make millions, letting it down and scooping them.  My habit of listening intently to Uncle Nate’s telegrammatic style of talk caused him to like me.  I resembled King Lear:  I talked with those who were wise, and said little, and Nathan’s aphorisms about trade and politics made good paragraphs when boiled down to the crisp cracklins.

While I worked and Lydia entertained we were waltzing like the wind down to ruin.  No use to cry, “Ho! great gods!  Hilloa! you’re wanted here!” On we went.