"Ain't got onto the stair-climbing racket yet, eh? You'll get used to it. 'Louise Levy,'" she read the name on the trunk. "You don't look like a sheeny. Can't tell nothin' 'bout names, can you? My name's Slattery. You'd think I was Irish, wouldn't you? Well, I'm straight Ne' York. I'd be dead before I was Irish. Born here. Ninth Ward an' next to an engine house. How's that? There's white Jews, too. I worked for one, pickin' sealskins down in Prince Street. Most took the lungs out of me. But that wasn't why I shook the biz. It queered my hands--see? I'm goin' to be married in the Fall to a German gentleman. He ain't so Dutch when you know him, though. He's a grocer. Drivin' now; but he buys out the boss in the Fall. How's that? He's dead stuck on my hooks, an' I have to keep 'em lookin' good. I come here because the work was light. I don't have to work--only to be doin' somethin', see? Only got five halls and the lamps. You got a fam'ly job, I s'pose? I wouldn't have that. I don't mind the Sooprintendent; but I'd be dead before I'd be bossed by a woman, see? Say, what fam'ly did you say you was with?" The stream of talk had acted like a nerve-tonic on Louise. She was able to answer: "M--Mr. Remy." "Ramy?--oh, lord! Got the job with His Tonsils? Well, you won't keep it long. They're meaner'n three balls, see? Rent their room up here and chip in with eleven. Their girls don't never stay. Well, I got to step, or the Sooprintendent'll be borin' my ear. Well--so long!" But Louise had fled down the stairs. "His Tonsils" rang in her ears. What blasphemy! What sacrilege! She could scarcely pretend to listen to Mme. Remy's first instructions. The household _was_ parsimonious. Louise washed the caterer's dishes--he made a reduction in his price. Thus she learned that a late breakfast took the place of luncheon. She began to feel what this meant. The beds had been made; but there was work enough. She helped Mme. Remy to sponge a heap of faded finery--_her_ dresses. If they had been _his_ coats! Louise bent her hot face over the tawdry silks and satins, and clasped her parboiled little finger-tips over the wet sponge. At half-past three Mme. Remy broke the silence. "We must get ready for Musseer," she said. An ecstatic joy filled Louise's being. The hour of her reward was at hand. Getting ready for "Musseer" proved to be an appalling process. First they brewed what Mme. Remy called a "teaze Ann." After the _tisane_, a host of strange foreign drugs and cosmetics were marshalled in order. Then water was set to heat on a gas-stove. Then a little table was neatly set. "Musseer has his dinner at half-past four," Madame explained. "I don't take mine till he's laid down and I've got him off to the concert. There, he's coming now. Sometimes he comes home pretty nervous. If he's nervous, don't you go and make a fuss, do you hear, child?"