Despair, while embittering her, had cleared her vision. She saw the "shop" and the "system"--and understood. She had entered the trade strong and healthy, and had been well-paid at first, when she had the great desideratum--Speed. It had seemed like good pay then. But now she knew better. They had been buying not only her day-by-day ability, they had bought up her future. For the wages of less than ten years they had bought all her life--they had bought even her children! Already the flow of vests had piled up once or twice too swiftly for her. Jake Goldfogle, the present boss, was threatening to discharge her. If she lost this job, it would be the end. The Gerry Society would surely take her babies and put them in "institutions." No, she had not been well-paid in the days when they had given her extra wages for the pace that kills. It is small pleasure for a mother to hush the hunger-cry of her children, but that was all the joy that was left to Mrs. Cohen. And if she lost her job, she would lose even this. Just in proportion as Number Four at the bottom of the table had learned many bitter things from life, so Yetta at the head had almost everything yet to learn. She began the long lesson with a pain in her back. It came unexpectedly. It was as much the insulting surprise of it, as the hurt itself, which made her cry out sharply and drop her work--throwing the whole team out of rhythm. "_Wos is dir_, Yetta?" Mrs. Weinstein asked with motherly solicitude. "Oy-yoy-yoy!" Yetta said, putting her hand to her back--"_Es is schon verbei_." Mrs. Cohen at the bottom of the table laughed mirthlessly. "It will come back," she screamed in Yiddish above the din of the machinery. "I know. It begins so. One speeds two, three years--four--with one it is the lungs, with another it is the back, or the eyes." She seized the momentary pause to ease herself with coughs. Mrs. Levy, who had been long in the trade, had seen many a "speeder" give in; some slowly, some suddenly. She had seen dozens of them, fighting desperately the fight for food, slip down from the head to the foot and out--out through the door to the street and nowhere. As Mrs. Cohen had said, it was sometimes the eyes, sometimes the lungs, sometimes the back. She nodded her head in affirmation. Oh yes, she had seen it many times. She could have told the story of one mother who had gone on speeding in spite of back and lungs and eyes, had kept on speeding until one day she had fallen over her machine dead. Her hair had gotten tangled in the cogs, and they had to cut it to take her away. Mrs. Weinstein tried to comfort Yetta. "Don't listen to them," she said. "You are yet young--you'll be all right--" She stopped abruptly, for the office door had opened and Jake Goldfogle came out. His ear, trained to the chaotic noise of the shop, had caught the momentary halt. "_Ober, mein Gott, wos is der mer?_" he roared.