The receiving parlor of another house on Sixth Avenue[21] is reached by climbing a flight of winding stairs and passing through a red door with a little window in it. The bedrooms are small and dirty, with practically no furniture. But the madame is very energetic. As customers enter the house she does not allow them to sit about and talk with the inmates, but urges them to spend money or leave. At 12.45 A. M., March 14, 1912, twelve inmates in flimsy costumes were seated about the parlor with five men--one a forlorn peddler who had come in to sell fruit. The place was in an uproar. One of the inmates was quarreling with the madame; several were complaining of poor business. One of them showed the investigator a plain white card with seven punched holes, proving that up to that hour she had earned only seven dollars, half of which was hers. She stated that she has to pay two dollars per day for board whether she lives at the house or not. As a matter of fact, she as well as other girls in some of these houses lives at home, going home early in the morning and not coming to "work" until 6 P. M. In an establishment in West 28th Street[22]--torn down during the summer to make way for a loft building--the business was so profitable in June that the keepers are said to have paid the wrecker a large sum to delay from week to week. July 9 was one of the hottest days of the year. The odors in the old house, dirty and falling into decay, were indescribable. Through the long hours the sixteen inmates sat, hot and sullen. The day before the madame had left for a resort in Sullivan County where many of her kind go during the summer months. She had placed in charge the housekeeper,[23] who did the best she could to keep the girls in good humor and to get through the day's business. On this hot July day there were 264 customers. So the records on the cards showed the next morning as the housekeeper sat with the "boss" making up the "books." Buster served 30 of these; Babie, 27; Charlotte, 23; Dolly, 20, and so on. But the "boss" was not satisfied. "Why were not more women on the job last night?" he demanded. The housekeeper replied that they had stayed away because of the heat,--they had been completely "done up" the day before. Then the fat and well-groomed owner of the business picked up a china cup and hurled it at his luckless representative, while he cursed loud and deep. "The trade must be taken care of" and if she couldn't "do it" he would get "some one who could."