cial
kinds of extra digestible bread, and usually that bread must in
addition be toasted. While it was toasting, Mr. O'Sullivan voiced his
views on Old Maids with Indigestion. Much of it does not bear
repeating. When the toast was done, Mr. O'Sullivan would hold out his
plate with the napkin folded ready for the toast. "Shure an yo'r the
sweetest child my eyes ever looked upon" (Mr. O'Sullivan would say
just the same thing in the same way to a toothless old hag of ninety).
"Mind you spare yo'rself now from both bein' an old maid and sufferin'
to the point where y' can't eat plain white bread!"

This particular Thursday I had even found some one to talk to in the
recreation room when I sneaked up at three o'clock. There came a time
when Schmitz's patience was strained over my regular disappearance
from about 3 to 3.30. There was absolutely nothing for me to do just
then in my own line, so I embraced that opportunity daily to take my
way to the recreation room and see what pickings I could gather up.
But one afternoon Schmitz's face bore an extra-heavy frown. "Say, what
you do every day that keeps you from your work all this time? Don't
you know that ain't no way to do? Don't you understand hotel work is
just like a factory? Everybody must be in his place all day and not go
wandering off!"

"Ever work in a factory?" I asked Schmitz.

He deigned no answer.

"Well, then, I'm telling _you_ I have, and hotel work ain't like a
factory at _all_."

"Vell, you see it's dis vay--naturally--"

This Thursday up in the recreation room I found an ancient scrubwoman,
patched and darned to pieces, with stringy thin hair, and the fat,
jovial Irishwoman from the help's pantry. The three of us had as giddy
a half hour as anyone in all New York. We laughed at one another's
jokes till we almost wept, and forgot all about the thermometer. The
fat Irishwoman had worked at the hotel two years, the scrubwoman
almost that long. Both "lived out." They, too, informed me I had one
of the best jobs in the hotel--nobody messin' in with what you're
doin'--they leave y'alone. The fat one had worked some time in the
linen room, but preferred pantry work. The linen room was too much
responsibility--had to count out aprons and towels and things in piles
of ten and tie them, and things like that--made a body's head swim.

Realizing Schmitz's growing discomfort, I finally had to tear myself
away. The fat Irishwoman called after me, "Good-by, dear, a