e kept, and with
one pause to take the name and number of the small Nemesis I went my
way. Three days later she sat there still, and on the following one, as
the warm spring rain fell steadily, she kept her post, sheathed in a
rubber cloak, and protected by an umbrella which, from its size and
quality, I felt must be the stout gentleman's. With Saturday night her
self-imposed siege ended, and she marched away, leaving the enemy badly
discomfited and much more disposed to consider the rights of the
individual, if not of the worker in general. As Madame's prices were
never less than fifty dollars for the making of a suit, ranging from
this to a hundred or more, and as her three children were still small
and her husband an undiscoverable factor, it became an interesting
question to know where she placed the profits which, even when lessened
by non-paying customers, could never be anything but great. Madame,
however, had been too keen even for the sharp-witted lawyer of the
Protective Union, whose utmost efforts only disclosed the fact that she
was the probable backer of a manufacturer whose factory and farm were on
Long Island, and whose business capacity had till within a few years
never insured him more than a bare living.

It is an old story, yet an always new one, and in this case Madame had
quieted her conscience by providing a comfortable lunch for the workers
and allowing them more space than is generally the portion in a busy
establishment. Well housed and well fed through the day and paid at
intervals enough to meet the demands of rent or board bill, it was easy
to satisfy her hands by the promise of full and speedy settlement, and
when this failed, to tell a pitiful tale of unpaid bills and
conscienceless customers, who could not be forced. When these resources
were exhausted discharge solved any further difficulties, and a new set
came in, to undergo the same experience. In an establishment where
honesty has any place, the wages are rather beyond the average,
skirt-hands receiving from seven to nine dollars a week and waist-hands
from ten to fifteen. In the case of stores this latter class make from
eighteen to forty dollars per week, and often accumulate enough capital
to start in business for themselves. But a skirt-hand like Mary M----
seldom passes on to anything higher, and counts herself well paid if
her week of sixty hours brings her nine dollars, not daring to grumble
seriously if it falls to seven or ev