heir time
for getting sick of us. I got caught that way once when I worked in a
candy-box factory. I bet I don't again! See here, I'm kind of sorry
for you if you thought the Hands was a party where they asked you to
sit down and have afternoon tea. Fred Thorpe, the floorwalker in this
depart, is a real good feller, and he'd be glad to give us a rest--a
big difference between him and _some_ I've knowed! But he dasn't treat
us as white as he'd like. In this show every _Jack_ and _Jill_ is
watched from above. There ain't nobody except Father himself das' call
his soul his own. If a chap thinks he's safe to do some tiny thing his
own way, gee! a brick falls smack on his head. That's one of Peter
Rolls's little ways."

Win shivered slightly to hear that name thus used, but Miss Jones was
absorbed in her subject.

"Us guyls ain't even supposed to talk to each other, except about
business," she went on. "But that's just the one thing they _can't_
stop, and they know they can't, so they have to wink at it. You see,
though, the way I keep folding the goods or pretending to look for
something every instant, so you'd most think I'd got the St. Vitus's
dance? Well, that's because if we just stood with our heads together
poor Thorpe would have to come careering over here and inquire what
was the subject of our earnest conversation. He'd hate it like poison,
but he'd do it all the same, or the feller above would know the
reason why."

"I thought he seemed kind and nice--I mean Mr. Thorpe," said Win.

"No use trying to mash him! He's gone on Dora Stein. Say, did you get
on to the _sale_ job? I somehow thought you did."

"I saw there was some trouble," Win hesitated.

"Trouble? There's nothing but trouble. Anybody'd think we was asking
for it! This blessed depart is upset from way back since the
promotions began. Our last superintendent got the sack through his
drunken wife coming around the place makin' scenes. And Mr. Meggison
was put over another man's head. That made t'other feller so mad he
blowed out his brains. 'Twas in the papers, but it got hushed up
mighty quick. The news, not the brains, I mean! Old Saint Peter knows
some tricks of hushin' up.

"Well, anyways, that set the ball rolling, and our head salesman was
jumped up to be department manager and buyer right over Thorpe's head.
'Twas too much for him, and he gave Dora Stein the toss. Now he wants
her out of his shine, and he dumped some jay stuff he bought in a