Then, as a last resort, some woman wit hit upon an expedient which it was strange that no one had thought of before. The Great Weep was organised. Relays of women, ten thousand at a time, wept continuously in the public places of the Metropolis. They wept in railway stations, in tubes and omnibuses, in the National Gallery, at the Army and Navy Stores, in St James’s Park, at ballad concerts, at Prince’s and in the Burlington Arcade. The hitherto unbroken success of the brilliant farcical comedy ‘Henry’s Rabbit’ was imperilled by the presence of drearily weeping women in stalls and circle and gallery, and one of the brightest divorce cases that had been tried for many years was robbed of much of its sparkle by the lachrymose behaviour of a section of the audience.

‘What are we to do?’ asked the Prime Minister, whose cook had wept into all the breakfast dishes and whose nursemaid had gone out, crying quietly and miserably, to take the children for a walk in the Park.

‘There is a time for everything,’ said the King; ‘there is a time to yield. Pass a measure through the two Houses depriving women of the right to vote, and bring it to me for the Royal assent the day after tomorrow.’

As the Minister withdrew, Hermann the Irascible, who was also nicknamed the Wise, gave a profound chuckle.

‘There are more ways of killing a cat than by choking it with cream,’ he quoted, ‘but I’m not sure,’ he added, ‘that it’s not the best way.’