not had enough.

"Doin' much readin'?" Joe asked.

Martin shook his head.

"Never mind. We got to run the mangle to-night, but Thursday we'll knock
off at six. That'll give you a chance."

Martin washed woollens that day, by hand, in a large barrel, with strong
soft-soap, by means of a hub from a wagon wheel, mounted on a plunger-
pole that was attached to a spring-pole overhead.

"My invention," Joe said proudly. "Beats a washboard an' your knuckles,
and, besides, it saves at least fifteen minutes in the week, an' fifteen
minutes ain't to be sneezed at in this shebang."

Running the collars and cuffs through the mangle was also Joe's idea.
That night, while they toiled on under the electric lights, he explained
it.

"Something no laundry ever does, except this one. An' I got to do it if
I'm goin' to get done Saturday afternoon at three o'clock. But I know
how, an' that's the difference. Got to have right heat, right pressure,
and run 'em through three times. Look at that!" He held a cuff aloft.
"Couldn't do it better by hand or on a tiler."

Thursday, Joe was in a rage. A bundle of extra "fancy starch" had come
in.

"I'm goin' to quit," he announced. "I won't stand for it. I'm goin' to
quit it cold. What's the good of me workin' like a slave all week, a-
savin' minutes, an' them a-comin' an' ringin' in fancy-starch extras on
me? This is a free country, an' I'm to tell that fat Dutchman what I
think of him. An' I won't tell 'm in French. Plain United States is
good enough for me. Him a-ringin' in fancy starch extras!"

"We got to work to-night," he said the next moment, reversing his
judgment and surrendering to fate.

And Martin did no reading that night. He had seen no daily paper all
week, and, strangely to him, felt no desire to see one. He was not
interested in the news. He was too tired and jaded to be interested in
anything, though he planned to leave Saturday afternoon, if they finished
at three, and ride on his wheel to Oakland. It was seventy miles, and
the same distance back on Sunday afternoon would leave him anything but
rested for the second week's work. It would have been easier to go on
the train, but the round trip was two dollars and a half, and he was
intent on saving money.

CHAPTER XVII

Martin learned to do many things. In the course of the first week, in
one afternoon, he and Joe accounted for the two hundred white shirts. Joe
ran the tiler, a machin