“Go back to work,” and my voice was emphatic. “You don’t want to throw up the sponge and go back home your first year out of college. Eight dollars a week will pay your actual living expenses. You needn’t run behind. Besides,” I added as a morsel of consolation, and with an unholy sigh, “it won’t be for long. As soon as I get settled in the department store I’ll look around and get you a good opening.” “But you don’t know that you are going to get a decent wage!” Alice wailed. “You may not get much more than they pay me.” “Don’t be silly,” I reproved, suppressing the irritation caused by being forced, as I considered it, to fill up with my own hands such a rich mine of literary material. “If you had seen that application-blank you’d know that I am to get a good—not wage—but a good salary, a good fat salary.” CHAPTER III SLIMY THINGS THAT WALK ON LEGS Monday morning I jammed myself into a subway train bound for the responsible, high-salaried position which my vanity assured me waited for me in the department store. Arriving a few minutes after eight I found at least fifty women and girls already waiting and fully as many more came later. On the opening of the employees’ entrance we were directed to one corner of the damp, unheated basement and there kept standing for nearly two hours. Finally a man and a woman made their appearance and divided us into squads of five or six. The squad to which I was assigned was told to follow a little girl with a pale face and very bowed legs. After about a half-hour spent in climbing up and down stairs and waiting outside closed doors we at last came to a halt in the loft in which we had left our hats and coats. Here, after a wait of another half-hour, a youngish man took charge of us and conducting us to one corner of a large lunch-room informed us that he would teach us the cardinal principles of salesmanship. This, so far as I was able to understand, comprised making out sale-slips and wearing a perpetual smile and a black shirtwaist. “The company won’t stand for a grouchy saleslady. I’m tellin’ you,” this teacher warned us at the end of the lesson. “And if you don’t want to get fired you’ll come to-morrow in a black shirtwaist. Skirts don’t matter so much, but you must wear a black waist. You can get ’em at the regular counter—dollar and a quarter, all sizes.” Being paired with a woman whose name, she confided to me, was Mrs. McDavit, I was ordered to follow yet another little girl with a pale face and very bowed legs. Coming to a halt in the underwear department, the little girl turned us over to the aisle manager. He stationed us at a long aisle-counter piled with garments ranging in price from nineteen to ninety-seven cents. A Mrs. Johnson, who was in charge of an adjoining counter, was to see to it that we made no mistakes.