warranted the suggestion that, as a matter of course, I liked to go to
balls.

"My pleasure club has a blow-out next Sunday night," he remarked
significantly, as I gathered up my trimmings and departed.

During my five minutes' absence the most exciting event of the day had
occurred. Adrienne, one of the strippers, had just been carried away,
unconscious, with two bleeding finger-stumps. In an unguarded moment the
fingers had been cut off in her machine. Although their work does not
allow them to stop a moment, her companions were all loud in sympathy
for this misfortune, which is not rare. Little Jennie, the unfortunate
girl's turner-in and fellow-worker for two years, wept bitterly as she
wiped away the blood from the long, shining knife and prepared to take
the place of her old superior, with its increased wage of five dollars
and a half a week. The little girl had been making only three dollars
and a quarter, and so, as Henrietta remarked, "It's a pretty bad
accident that don't bring good to somebody."

"Did they take her away in a carriage?" Henrietta asked of Goldy
Courtleigh, who had stopped a moment to rest at our table.

"Well, I should say! What's the use of getting your fingers whacked off
if you can't get a carriage-ride out of it?"

"Yes, and that's about the only way you'd ever squeeze a carriage-ride
out of this company," commented Henrietta. "Now I've two lady-friends
who work in mills where a sick headache and a fainting-spell touch the
boss for a carriage-ride every time!"

The order on which we worked was, like most of the others on the floor
that day, for late-afternoon delivery. Our ruching-boxes had to be
finished that day, even though it took every moment till six or even
seven o'clock. Saturday being what is termed a "short-day," one had to
work with might and main in order to leave at half-past four. This
Henrietta was very anxious to do, partly because she had her Easter
shopping to do, and partly because this was the night I was to be
installed in my new quarters. Lunch-time found us still far behind.
Therefore we did not stop to eat, but snatched bites of cake and
sandwich as hunger dictated, and convenience permitted, all the while
pasting and labeling and taping our boxes. Nor were we the only toilers
obliged to forgo the hard-earned half-hour of rest.

The awakening thunder of the machinery burst gratefully on our ears. It
meant that the last half of the weary day had begun. How my