Page:Traveler from Altruria, Howells, 1894.djvu/114

108 "Isn't that rather extreme?" I ventured to ask.

"No," said Mrs. Makely, "it's shamefully moderate," and she seemed to delight in having made out such a bad case for her sex. You can't stop a woman of that kind when she gets started; I had better left it alone.

"But," said the Altrurian, "if you are forbidden by motives of humanity from doing any sort of manual labor, which you must leave to those who live by it, I suppose you take some sort of exercise?"

"Well," said Mrs. Makely, shaking her head gaily, "we prefer to take medicine."

"You must approve of that," I said to the Altrurian, "as you consider exercise for its own sake insane or immoral. But, Mrs. Makely," I entreated, "you're giving me away at a tremendous rate. I have just been telling Mr. Homos that you ladies go in for athletics so much, now, in your summer outings, that there is danger of your becoming physically as well as intellectually superior to us poor fellows. Don't take that consolation from me!"

"I won't, altogether," she said. "I couldn't have the heart to, after the pretty way you've put it. I don't call it very athletic, sitting around on hotel