nes; we ironed already washed, starched, and
dampened clothes. Such work as we did took no particular skill, though
a certain improvement in speed and quality of work came with practice.
One's eyes could wander now and then, one's thoughts could wander
often, and conversation with one's neighbors was always possible.

Behold the dress factory, a little complete world of its own on one
small floor where every process of manufacture, and all of it skilled
work, could be viewed from any spot. Not quite every process--the
designer had a room of her own up front nearer where the woodwork was
white.

"Ready-made clothing!" It sounds so simple--just like that. Mrs. Fine
Lady saunters into a shop, puts up her lorgnette, and lisps, "I'd like
to see something in a satin afternoon dress." A plump blonde in
tight-fitting black with a marcel wave trips over to mirrored doors,
slides one back, takes a dress off its hanger--and there you are! "So
much simpler than bothering with a dressmaker."

But whatever happened to get that dress to the place where the blonde
could sell it? "Ready-made," indeed! There has to be a start some
place before there is any "made" to it. It was at that point in our
dress factory when the French designer first got a notion into her
head--she who waved her arms and gesticulated and flew into
French-English rages just the way they do on the stage. "_Mon Dieu!
Mon Dieu!_"--gray-haired Madame would gasp at our staid and portly Mr.
Rogers. Ada could say "My Gawd!" through her Russian nose to him and
it had nothing like the same wilting effect.

Ready-made--yes, ready-made. But first Madame got her notion, and then
she and her helpers concocted the dress itself. A finished article, it
hung inside the wire inclosure where the nice young cutter kept
himself and his long high table. The cutter took a look at the
finished garment hanging on the side of his cage, measured a bit with
his yardstick, and then proceeded to cut the pattern out of paper.
Whereupon he laid flat yards and yards of silks and satins on his
table and with an electric cutter sliced out his parts. One
mistake--one slice off the line--_Mon Dieu!_ it's too terrible to
think of! All these pieces had to be sorted according to sizes and
colors, and tied and labeled. (Wanted--bright and useful girl right
here.)

Next came the sewing machine operators (electric power)--a long narrow
table, nine machines at a side, but not more than fourteen operat