few chairs--that's all. We
talk an hour--and on what? We discuss Bernhardt, the divine Sarah. "Good
shows don't come to Lynn much; it don't pay them. You can't get more
than fifty cents a seat. Now Bernhardt don't like to act for fifty-cent
houses! But the theatres are crowded if ever there's a good show. We get
tired of the awful poor shows to the Opera House." Maude Adams was a
favourite. Rejane had been seen. Of course, the vital American
interest--money--is touched upon, let me say lightly, and passed. The
packer at Rigger's, intelligent and well-informed and well-read,
discoursed in good French about English and French politics and on the
pleasure it would be to travel and see the world.

At nine, friendly handshaking. "Good-night. You're tired. You'll like
it all right to the shops, see if you don't! You'll make money, too. The
forelady must a-seen that you were ambitious. Why, to my shop when a new
hand applies for a job the foreman asks: 'What does he look like?
Ambitious lookin'? Well, then--there's room."

Ambitious to make shoes! To grind out all you can above the average five
dollars a week, all you may by conscientious, unflagging work during 224
hours out of a month.

Good-night to the working world! Landlady and friendly co-labourers.

"_Il ne faut pas vous gener, mademoiselle; nous sommes toute une
famille_."

Upstairs in my room the excitement died quite out of me. I lay wakeful
in the hard, sheetless bed. It was cold, my window-pane freezing
rapidly. I could not sleep. On either side, through the thin walls of
the house, I could hear my neighbours settling to repose. Maurice's room
was next to mine. He whistled a short snatch of a topical song as he
undressed. On the other side slept the landlady's children; opposite,
the packer from Rigger's. The girls' room was downstairs. When Maurice's
song had reached its close he heaved a profound sigh, and then followed
silence, as slumber claimed the sole period of his existence not devoted
to work. The tenement soon passed to stillness complete.

Before six the next morning--black as night--the call: "Mau--rice!
Mau--_rice_!" rang through the hall. Summons to us all, given through
him on whom the exigencies of life fell the heaviest. Maurice worked by
day system--the rest of us were freed men and women by comparison.

The night before, timid and reluctant to descend the two flights of
pitch dark stairs with a heavy water-pitcher in my hand, I had broug