ent man put on his hat and coat and dashed upstairs after my
steward. Just incidentally, speaking of hats and coats, it can be
mentioned that all this was in the middle of one of the hottest
summers New York ever knew.

The steward led the way up one flight of iron stairs and into the main
kitchen. Wasn't I all eyes to see what was what! If anyone is looking
for a bit of muck-raking about the hinterland of restaurants, let him
not bother to read farther. Nothing could have been cleaner than the
kitchen conditions in our hotel. And orders up and down the line were
to serve _nothing_ which was not absolutely as it should be.

In a corner of the main kitchen the steward turned me over to Bridget,
who was to take me here, there, and the other place. By 11.30 A.M., I
was back where I started from, only, thanks to aged Bridget and her
none-too-sure leadings, I was clad in a white cap and white all-over
apron-dress, and had had my lunch. Thereupon the steward escorted me
to my own special corner of the world, where, indeed, I was to be lord
of all I surveyed--provided my gaze fell not too far afield.

That particular corner was down one short flight of stairs from the
main kitchen into a hustling, bustling, small and compact, often
crowded, place where were prepared the breakfasts, lunches, and
dinners of such folk who cared more for haste and less for style than
the patrons of the main dining rooms. Our cafe fed more persons in a
day than the other dining rooms combined. Outside we could seat five
hundred at a time, sixty-five of those at marble counters, the rest at
small tables. But our kitchen quarters could have been put in one
corner of the spacious, airy upstairs main kitchen.

Through the bustle of scurrying and ordering waiters I was led to a
small shelved-off compartment. Here I was to earn my fifty dollars a
month from 1.30 P.M. to 9 P.M. daily except Sunday, with one-half hour
off for supper. I was entitled to eat my breakfast and lunch at the
hotel as well.

This first day, I was instructed to watch for two hours the girl I
was to relieve at 1.30. Her hours were from 6 in the morning to 1.30,
which meant she got the brunt of the hard work--all of the breakfast
and most of the lunch rush. To me fell the tail end of the lunch
rush--up to about 2.15, and supper or dinner, which only occasionally
could be spoken of as "rush" at all. I discovered later that we both
got the same pay, although she had to work very m