want of me now?"

For answer Mrs. Saphir beat her forehead and commenced to rock anew.
"My last ten cents I am spending it for carfare," she cried.

"What is that got to do with me?" Seiden asked. "People comes into my
office and takes up my whole morning disturbing my business, and I
should pay 'em carfare yet? An idee!"

"Only one way I am asking," Mrs. Saphir said.

"I wouldn't even give you a transfer ticket," Mr. Seiden declared, and
once more he banged the door behind him with force sufficient to shiver
its ground-glass panel.

Mrs. Saphir waited for an interval of ten minutes and then she gathered
her shawl about her; and with a final adjustment of her crape bonnet
she shuffled out of the office.

Miss Bessie Saphir was a chronic "learner"--that is to say, she had
never survived the period of instruction in any of the numerous shirt,
cloak, dress, and clothing factories in which she had sought
employment; and at the end of her second month in the workshop of the
Sanspareil Waist Company she appeared to know even less about the
manufacture of waists than she did at the beginning of her first week.

"How could any one be so _dumm_!" Philip Sternsilver cried as he held
up a damaged garment for his employer's inspection, "I couldn't
understand at all. That's the tenth waist Bessie Saphir ruins on us."

"_Dumm!_" Mr. Seiden exclaimed. "What d'ye mean, dumb? You are getting
altogether too independent around here, Sternsilver."

"Me--independent!" Philip rejoined. "For what reason I am independent,
Mr. Seiden? I don't understand what you are talking about at all."

"No?" Seiden said. "Might you don't know you are calling my wife's
relation dumb, Sternsilver? From a big mouth a feller like you could
get himself into a whole lot of trouble."

"Me calling your wife's relation dumb, Mr. Seiden?" Sternsilver cried
in horrified accents. "I ain't never said nothing of the sort. What I
am saying is that that _dummer_ cow over there--that Bessie Saphir--is
_dumm_. I ain't said a word about your wife's relations."

"Loafer!" Seiden shouted in a frenzy. "What d'ye mean?"

Sternsilver commenced to perspire.

"What do I mean?" he murmured. "Why, I am just telling you what I
mean."

"If it wouldn't be our busy season," Seiden continued, "I would fire
you right out of here _und fertig_. Did you ever hear the like? Calls
my wife's cousin, Miss Bessie Saphir, a _dummer Ochs_!"

"How should I know she's your wife's cou