ll o' dinner, to the meeting of the Anti-Sweats.
I know em! Maybe _they'll_ do some o' the sweatin' in kingdom come!"

Already Win had learned that a "lemon" or a "pill" was a customer who
made as much trouble as possible for as small as possible a return;
but it gave her a stab to hear Peter Rolls's great department store
called a "sweat shop." Again she saw the eyes. Was she never to get
rid of the memory of those hypocritical blue eyes?

Nobody thought of being ready for home until nearly ten o'clock; and
long before that Miss Stein's nerves felt as if they had been run,
like threads, through the eyes of hot needles. Again Win had helped
her in the afternoon by placing blouses of congenial colours together
on the counters instead of letting them lie anyhow, as Miss Stein, in
her recklessness, would have done. But less than ever had the elder
girl seen reason for thanking Miss Child when the second instalment of
"punk" goods was brought out of "reserve."

If the first lot had not gone off so soon they would not have been
saddled with this, and so 2884 had, in Miss Stein's estimation, done
nothing at the end of the day except "show herself off" and make
everybody work twice as hard as necessary. She would not tell Win how
to put things away, or let anybody else help her out.

"You gotta learn for yourself or you never will," she said sharply,
all the more sharply because Fred Thorpe, the floorwalker, happened to
be within earshot.

"I don't care what he thinks of me!" she said fiercely to herself,
knowing that Thorpe would understand and disapprove her injustice to
the new girl. But it was only half true that she did not care.

She was longing desperately for somebody to love her; and though she
could not in decency have accepted, after the way she had treated him,
she wished that Thorpe would ask her to have supper with him that
night. The Westlake pig, she knew, was going to Dorlon's for a pan
roast with Horrocks, for the creature had told all the girls who were
sure to run with it to her, Dora Stein. Thorpe would have been a faded
flag to flaunt in the face of the enemy--a floorwalker, to one who had
mashed a department manager! Still it would have been comforting to
know that she still had attractions for some one, and at least she
would have liked the chance to refuse an invitation.

Thorpe, on his part, would joyfully have asked her, for he could not
quite "unlove" the beautiful face he had once adored, th