"You don't understand that what imposes on common folk would never hoodwink an editor."
"That's where you are wrong. Gentle or simple, stupid or clever, the men are all alike in the hands of a woman that flatters them."
"Ah, I'm sure there are better ways of getting round an editor than that."
"I daresay there are," my mother would say with conviction, "but if you try that plan you will never need to try another."
"How artful you are, mother—you with your soft face! Do you not think shame?"
"Pooh!" says my mother brazenly.
"I can see the reason why you are so popular with men."
"Ay, you can see it, but they never will."
"Well, how would you dress yourself if you were going to that editor's office?"
"Of course I would wear my silk and my Sabbath bonnet."
"It is you who are shortsighted now, mother. I tell you, you would manage him better if you just put on your old grey shawl and one of your bonny white mutches, and went in half smiling and half timid and said, 'I am the mother of him that writes about the Auld Lichts, and I want you to promise that he will never have to sleep in the open air.'"
But my mother would shake her head at this,
