e that
it wouldn't be nearly so hard in a few days, telling us to "stand
slack-like" and see if it didn't make the pain in our backs better. By
slack-like he meant stoop-shouldered, as everybody grows sooner or later
in a laundry.

The foreman's hygienic lecture was interrupted by the warning rumble of
the awakening machinery, and we scurried back to our table to make
practical test of his theory. We followed it to the letter, but, like
every other palliative of pain, it soon lost its virtue, and the long
afternoon was one of unspeakable agony. There were now not only aching
backs and arms and legs, but feet parboiled to a blister on the burning
floors. The air was rent with lamentations, and before long my
side-partner and I had also shed our shoes. By four o'clock everybody
had sunk into a state of apathetic quiet, and even the exuberant Queen
lost something of her vivaciousness, and attended strictly to the
business of goading us on to our tasks.

"We're two days behind with them hospital sheets," she screamed to one
relay; "S---- Hotel Barber Shop got to go out to-night," which
information brought groans from Mrs. Mooney.

"Mother of God!" she cried. "Sure and that means nine o'clock to-night."

"Aren't we going to get out at six?" asked the one-eyed girl, while I
glanced dismally at the never-ending train of trucks that kept rolling
out upon the washers' platform, faster now than at any other time of the
day.

"God love ye! dearie, no," returned Mrs. Mooney. "Ye'll never get
outside _this_ shop at six any night, unless ye're carried out dead.
We're in luck to get out as early as eight."

"Every night?"

"Sure, every night exceptin' Saturday, and then it's twelve to
half-past one."

"Oh, that's not so bad if you have a half-holiday."

"Half-holiday!" echoed Mrs. Mooney. "Will ye listen to that! A
half-holiday, indeed!" Then the mocking voice grew kinder. "Sure and
it's every minute of twelve o'clock or a half-hour into Sunday mornin'
afore you ever see the outside of this place of a Saturday in
summer-time, with all the washin' and ironin' for the summer hotels and
the big bugs as is at the sea-shore."

"Youse ain't got no kick coming," said one of the Ginney girls. "Youse
gets six cents an hour overtime, and youse 'll be mighty glad to make
that exter money!"

Mrs. Mooney glared viciously at the interlopers. "Yes, and if it wasn't
for the likes of yez Ginnies that 'll work for nothing and live in
pi