wasn't watched every minute they'd lay down--and let me and
the factory that supports 'em go to rack and ruin? And ain't
they muttonheads? Do you ever find any of 'em saying or doing a
sensible thing?"

Susan could not deny. She could think of excuses--perfect
excuses. But the facts were about as he brutally put it.

"Oh, I know 'em. I've dealt with 'em all my life," pursued the
box manufacturer. "Now, Lorny, you ought to be a forelady.
You've got to toughen up and stop bein' so polite and helpful
and all that. You'll _never_ get on if you don't toughen up.
Business is business. Be as sentimental as you like away from
business, and after you've clum to the top. But not _in_ business
or while you're kickin' and scratchin' and clawin' your way up."

Susan shook her head slowly. She felt painfully young and
inexperienced and unfit for the ferocious struggle called
life. She felt deathly sick.

"Of course it's a hard world," said Matson with a wave of his
cigar. "But did I make it?"

"No," admitted Susan, as his eyes demanded a reply.

"Sure not," said he. "And how's anybody to get up in it? Is
there any other way but by kickin' and stampin', eh?"

"None that I see," conceded Susan reluctantly.

"None that is," declared he. "Them that says there's other ways
either lies or don't know nothin' about the practical game.
Well, then!" Matson puffed triumphantly at the cigar. "Such
bein' the case--and as long as the crowd down below's got to be
kicked in the face by them that's on the way up, why shouldn't
I do the kickin'--which is goin' to be done anyhow--instead of
gettin' kicked? Ain't that sense?"

"Yes," admitted Susan. She sighed. "Yes," she repeated.

"Well--toughen up. Meanwhile, I'll raise you, to spur the others
on. I'll give you four a week." And he cut short her thanks with
an "Oh, don't mention it. I'm only doin' what's square--what
helps me as well as you. I want to encourage you. You don't
belong down among them cattle. Toughen up, Lorny. A girl with
a bank account gets the pick of the beaux." And he nodded a
dismissal.

Matson, and his hands, bosses and workers, brutal, brutalizing
each other more and more as they acted and reacted upon each
other. Where would it end?

She was in dire need of underclothes. Her undershirts were full
of holes from the rubbing of her cheap, rough corset; her
drawers and stockings were patched in several places--in fact,
she could not ha