tment from the
fecund pens of Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney, "Pansy," Amanda M. Douglas, and
similar good-goody writers for good-goody girls; their only remarks
being that their titles didn't sound interesting. I spoke
enthusiastically of "Little Women," telling them how I had read it four
times, and that I meant to read it again some day. Their curiosity was
aroused over the unheard-of thing of anybody ever wanting to read any
book more than once, and they pressed me to reciprocate by repeating the
story for them, which I did with great accuracy of statement, and with
genuine pleasure to myself at being given an opportunity to introduce
anybody to Meg and Jo and all the rest of that delightful March family.
When I had finished, Phoebe stopped her cornering and Mrs. Smith looked
up from her label-pasting.

"Why, that's no story at all," the latter declared.

"Why, no," echoed Phoebe; "that's no story--that's just everyday
happenings. I don't see what's the use putting things like that in
books. I'll bet any money that lady what wrote it knew all them boys and
girls. They just sound like real, live people; and when you was telling
about them I could just see them as plain as plain could be--couldn't
you, Gwendolyn?"

"Yep," yawned our vis-a-vis, undisguisedly bored.

"But I suppose farmer folks likes them kind of stories," Phoebe
generously suggested. "They ain't used to the same styles of anything
that us city folks are."

While we had been trying to forget our tired limbs in a discussion of
literary tastes and standards, our workmates had been relieving the
treadmill tedium of the long afternoon by various expedients. The
quartet at the table immediately in front of us had been making inane
doggerel rhymes upon the names of their workmates, telling riddles, and
exchanging nasty stories with great gusto and frequent fits of wild
laughter. At another table the forthcoming ball of the "Moonlight
Maids" was under hot discussion, and at a very long table in front of
the elevator they were talking in subdued voices about dreams and omens,
making frequent reference to a greasy volume styled "The Lucky Dream
Book."

Far over, under the windows, the stripper girls were tuning up their
voices preparatory to the late-afternoon concert, soon to begin. They
hummed a few bars of one melody, then of another; and at last, Angela's
voice leading, there burst upon the room in full chorus, to the rhythmic
whir of the wheels, the melodiou