ic, not only because
I saw a way out of my financial troubles, but also because I was eager
and curious over the new experience I was about to enter. I wanted
to know all about the cigar making business. This narrowed the
conversation down to the husband and myself, so the wife went in and
left us talking.

He was what is called a _regalia_ workman, and earned from thirty-five
to forty dollars a week. He generally worked a sixty-dollar job; that
is, he made cigars for which he was paid at the rate of sixty dollars
per thousand. It was impossible for him to make a thousand in a week
because he had to work very carefully and slowly. Each cigar was made
entirely by hand. Each piece of filler and each wrapper had to be
selected with care. He was able to make a bundle of one hundred cigars
in a day, not one of which could be told from the others by any
difference in size or shape, or even by any appreciable difference in
weight. This was the acme of artistic skill in cigar making. Workmen
of this class were rare, never more than three or four in one factory,
and it was never necessary for them to remain out of work. There were
men who made two, three, and four hundred cigars of the cheaper grades
in a day; they had to be very fast in order to make a decent week's
wages. Cigar making was a rather independent trade; the men went to
work when they pleased and knocked off when they felt like doing so.
As a class the workmen were careless and improvident; some very rapid
makers would not work more than three or four days out of the week,
and there were others who never showed up at the factory on Mondays.
"Strippers" were the boys who pulled the long stems from the tobacco
leaves. After they had served at that work for a certain time they
were given tables as apprentices.

All of this was interesting to me; and we drifted along in
conversation until my companion struck the subject nearest his heart,
the independence of Cuba. He was an exile from the island, and a
prominent member of the Jacksonville Junta. Every week sums of money
were collected from juntas all over the country. This money went to
buy arms and ammunition for the insurgents. As the man sat there
nervously smoking his long, "green" cigar, and telling me of the
Gomezes, both the white one and the black one, of Maceo and Bandera,
he grew positively eloquent. He also showed that he was a man of
considerable education and reading. He spoke English excellently, and
f