ade
people turn and stare at him. "I'll tell you. We've got to form a
union. There are unions for everything else. We have got to have a
union of older men qualified to work, who are shouldered out of it by
boys. Once that is done, we are all right. To-day in this country a
man can't hire whom he pleases in most things. The unions have put it
out of his power. The people have risen. We belong to a part of the
people who haven't risen. Now we must rise. Let us form a union, I
say. If they engage young men before us, there are ways of making
them smart for it, the employers as well as the employes. I tell you
that has got to be done."

Suddenly the men heard a laugh behind them. It was a woman's laugh,
shrill and not altogether pleasant--not the laugh of a young woman,
but the woman who came up with and immediately began to speak looked
quite young. She was undeniably pretty. Her blond pompadour drooped
coquettishly over one eye, her cheeks were pink, her face smooth, her
figure was really superb, and she was very well dressed, in a
tailor-made gown, smart furs, and a hat evidently of the
English-tailor make.

"Excuse me," she said, with perfect assurance, and yet with nothing
of offensive boldness, rather with an air of _camaraderie_, "but I
heard you talking, you two, and I thought I would give you a few
points. I don't know whether you know it or not, but I have recently
secured the position of cashier there, in Adkins & Somers's." She
motioned with one nicely gloved hand back towards the place they had
just left. "I got it in preference to about a dozen young girls,
too," she said, with triumph, "but I shouldn't have if--" She
hesitated a minute. The color on her cheeks deepened under the
floating veil, and there was, in consequence, a curious effect of two
shades of rose on her cheeks. "See here," she said, walking along
with them, "I don't know you two men from Adam, and I needn't take
the trouble, and if you don't like it you can lump it, but I'm going
to say something. I know I look young. I ain't fishing for a
compliment. I know it. I've got a looking-glass in a good light, and
I've got my eyes in my head, and, what's more, I'm spunky enough to
own it to myself if I don't look young; but I ain't young. I ain't
going to say how old I am, but I will say this much, I ain't young.
I've been married twice and I've had three children. My first husband
died, the second went off and left me. I've got a daughter fourte