lock, the hour at which most of the offices closed on Saturday
in summer, was excitedly approaching. The office-women throughout the
Septimus Building, who had been showing off their holiday frocks all
morning, were hastily finishing letters, or rushing to the women's
wash-rooms to discuss with one another the hang of new skirts. All
morning Bessie Kraker had kept up a monologue, beginning, "Say, lis-ten,
Miss Golden, say, gee! I was goin' down to South Beach with my gentleman
friend this afternoon, and, say, what d'you think the piker had to go
and get stuck for? He's got to work all afternoon. I don't care--I don't
care! I'm going to Coney Island with Sadie, and I bet you we pick up
some fellows and do the light fantastic till one G. M. Oh, you sad sea
waves! I bet Sadie and me make 'em sad!"

"But we'll be straight," said Bessie, half an hour later, apropos of
nothing. "But gee! it's fierce to not have any good times without you
take a risk. But gee! my dad would kill me if I went wrong. He reads
the Talmud all the time, and hates Goys. But gee! I can't stand it all
the time being a mollycoddle. I wisht I was a boy! I'd be a' aviator."

Bessie had a proud new blouse with a deep V, the edges of which gaped a
bit and suggested that by ingenuity one could see more than was evident
at first. Troy Wilkins, while pretending to be absent-mindedly fussing
about a correspondence-file that morning, had forgotten that he was much
married and had peered at the V. Una knew it, and the sordidness of that
curiosity so embarrassed her that she stopped typing to clutch at the
throat of her own high-necked blouse, her heart throbbing. She wanted to
run away. She had a vague desire to "help" Bessie, who purred at poor,
good Mr. Wilkins and winked at Una and chewed gum enjoyably, who was
brave and hardy and perfectly able to care for herself--an organism
modified by the Ghetto to the life which still bewildered Una.

Mr. Wilkins went home at 11.17, after giving them enough work to last
till noon. The office-boy chattily disappeared two minutes later, while
Bessie went two minutes after that. Her delay was due to the adjustment
of her huge straw hat, piled with pink roses and tufts of blue malines.

Una stayed till twelve. Her ambition had solidified into an unreasoning
conscientiousness.

With Bessie gone, the office was so quiet that she hesitated to
typewrite lest They sneak up on her--They who dwell in silent offices as
They dwel