nd God
bless y'."

Upstairs at supper that night I had the luck to land again at a
talkative table. We discussed many things--Ireland, for one. One girl
was she who had come two years ago from Ireland and did salads in the
main kitchen. Such a brogue! An Irish parlor maid had been long years
in this country. The two asked many questions of each other about
their life in the Old Country. "Shure," sighed one, "I love every
stick and every stone and tree and blade of grass in Ireland!"
"Shure," sighed the other, "an' that's just the way I feel about it,
too!"

Everyone at the table liked working at our hotel. According to them,
the hotel was nice, the girls nice, hours nice.

The subject of matrimony, as ever, came up. Not a soul at the table
but what was ag'in' it. Why should a woman get married when she can
support herself? All she'd get out of it would be a pack of kids to
clean up after, and work that never ended. Of course, the concession
was eventually made, if you were sure you were gettin' a good man--
But how many good men were there in the world? And look at the
divorces nowadays! Why try it at all? One girl reported as
statistically accurate that there was one divorce in the United States
to every four marriages. "You don't say!" was the chorus.

The subject changed to summer hotels. One woman had worked last summer
as a waitress at one of the beaches. That was the swellest job
ever--just like a vacation! All summer she had two tables only to wait
on, two persons at a table. Each table had tipped her five dollars a
week. Next summer we all must try it.

The minutes flew by too fast that supper. Before I knew it, 5.30 had
come around, and by the time I was downstairs again it was five
minutes past my appointed half hour. Poor, poor Schmitz! And yet lucky
Schmitz. It must have caused his soul much inner satisfaction to have
a real honest-to-goodness grievance to complain about. (You see, he
could not go up for his supper until I came down from mine.) Schmitz
upbraided me, patiently, with explanations. Every single night from
then on, when at five he would tell me I could go upstairs, he always
added, "And be sure you're back at half past five!" In natural
depravity of spirit, it was my delight one night to be able to sneak
down at about 5.25 without being seen by Schmitz. Then I shrank into a
corner of my compartment, out of his line of vision, and worked busily
on my evening chores. At 5.30, Schmitz began