st meal under
these new conditions. Afterwards they were to return to her for
instructions about their work.

When they had made the exchange of their clothing Elizabeth did not seem
able to look at Denton at first; but he looked at her, and saw with
astonishment that even in blue canvas she was still beautiful. And then
their soup and bread came sliding on its little rail down the long table
towards them and stopped with a jerk, and he forgot the matter. For they
had had no proper meal for three days.

After they had dined they rested for a time. Neither talked--there was
nothing to say; and presently they got up and went back to the
manageress to learn what they had to do.

The manageress referred to a tablet. "Y'r rooms won't be here; it'll be
in the Highbury Ward, Ninety-seventh Way, number two thousand and
seventeen. Better make a note of it on y'r card. _You_, nought nought
nought, type seven, sixty-four, b.c.d., _gamma_ forty-one, female; you
'ave to go to the Metal-beating Company and try that for a
day--fourpence bonus if ye're satisfactory; and _you_, nought seven one,
type four, seven hundred and nine, g.f.b., _pi_ five and ninety, male;
you 'ave to go to the Photographic Company on Eighty-first Way, and
learn something or other--_I_ don't know--thrippence. 'Ere's y'r cards.
That's all. Next! _What?_ Didn't catch it all? Lor! So suppose I must go
over it all again. Why don't you listen? Keerless, unprovident people!
One'd think these things didn't matter."

Their ways to their work lay together for a time. And now they found
they could talk. Curiously enough, the worst of their depression seemed
over now that they had actually donned the blue. Denton could talk with
interest even of the work that lay before them. "Whatever it is," he
said, "it can't be so hateful as that hat shop. And after we have paid
for Dings, we shall still have a whole penny a day between us even now.
Afterwards--we may improve,--get more money."

Elizabeth was less inclined to speech. "I wonder why work should seem
so hateful," she said.

"It's odd," said Denton. "I suppose it wouldn't be if it were not the
thought of being ordered about.... I hope we shall have decent
managers."

Elizabeth did not answer. She was not thinking of that. She was tracing
out some thoughts of her own.

"Of course," she said presently, "we have been using up work all our
lives. It's only fair--"

She stopped. It was too intricate.

"We paid fo