ed before
nightfall to be at work in a Lynn shoe-shop. It was now noon, streets
filled with files and lines of freed operatives. Into a restaurant I
wandered with part of the throng, and, with excitement and ambition for
sauce, ate a good meal.

Factories had received back their workers when I applied anew. This time
the largest building, one of the most important shops in Lynn, was my
goal. At the door of Parsons' was a sign reading:

"_Wanted, Vampers_."

A vamper I was not, but if any help was wanted there was hope. My demand
for work was greeted at the office this time with--"Any signs out?"

"Yes."

(What they were I didn't deem it needful to say!) The stenographer
nodded: "Go upstairs, then; ask the forelady on the fifth floor."

Through the big building and the shipping-room, where cases of shoes
were were being crated for the market, I went, at length really within
a factory's walls. From the first to the fifth floor I went in an
elevator--a freight elevator; there are no others, of course. This
lift was a terrifying affair; it shook and rattled in its shaft, shook
and rattled in pitch darkness as it rose between "safety
doors"--continuations of the building's floors. These doors open to
receive the ascending elevator, then slowly close, in order that the
shaft may be covered and the operatives in no danger of stepping
inadvertently to sudden death.

I reached the fifth floor and entered into pandemonium. The workroom was
in full working swing. At least five hundred machines were in operation
and the noise was startling and deafening.

I made my way to a high desk where a woman stood writing. I knew her for
the forelady by her "air"; nothing else distinguished her from the
employees. No one looked up as I entered. I was nowhere a figure to
attract attention; evidently nothing in my voice or manner or aspect
aroused supposition that I was not of the class I simulated.

Now, into my tone, as I spoke to the forelady bending over her account
book, I put all the force I knew. I determined she should give me
something to do! Work was everywhere: some of it should fall to my hand.

"Say, I've got to work. Give me anything, anything; I'm green."

She didn't even look at me, but called--shrieked, rather--above the
machine din to her colleagues:

"Got anything for a green hand?"

The person addressed gave me one glance, the sole and only look I got
from any one in authority in Parsons'.

"Ever worked in