“You are both dead tired. Both ready to drop,” I told them. “Your feet ache so badly that you feel like cutting them off.” “If my back didn’t ache I don’t believe I’d mind my feet so much,” Mrs. Johnson admitted. “When I was young girls didn’t go to business as they do now, so I didn’t get no training. Maybe if I had it wouldn’t come so hard to me now.” “It’s harder than washin’. I’ve found that out,” Mrs. McDavit said. After a moment she added diffidently: “If you was a married woman you’d know how hard it is to work at a thing that made your children ashamed of you.” It was not long after this little exchange of confidences that an elderly man, whom I had noticed earlier in the afternoon loitering near our counter, approached and spoke to me. “These are not of very good quality?” he questioned, fingering the underwear. “They are unusually good value,” I truthfully replied. “Good for the price.” “Not such as a lady like yourself would prefer?” “We cannot always choose,” I answered, recalling my one change of undergarments. “You would like those better,” he said, indicating the display of silk underwear at the regular counter. “Any woman would,” I admitted indifferently, as I turned to wait on a customer. A few minutes later Mrs. Johnson asked my bust measure. She explained that a customer at the regular counter was buying silk underwear for a lady about my size. Glancing across I saw the elderly man talking with the regular saleswoman. He looked to be a man of refinement with ample means. The next time my end of the counter was free of customers he approached me and thrust a parcel into my hands. “What is this for?” I asked, recognizing that it was the parcel he had received at the regular underwear counter. “For you,” he leered. Then before I could so much as wink my staring eyes he whispered: “I want you to meet me to-night—in Times Square drug-store at eight—sharp.” Every drop of blood in my body seemed to rush to my head. In that instant I realized the significance of the expression “seeing red.” I was all but blind and choking with rage. Another instant and I would have done my best to wring his flabby neck. A woman at my elbow asked the price of a corset-cover. At the elevator the old reprobate turned and blew me a kiss from his gloved fingers. Mrs. Johnson and Mrs. McDavit received my indignant explanation more calmly than I had expected. “They usually come round this time,” Mrs. Johnson stated. “They wait until a girl is all tired out, willing for ’most anything. Then they flash their money before her eyes. It’s a cruel shame.” “I’m going to tell the aisle manager!” I declared, disgusted by what appeared to me the callous acceptance by the two women of a heinous condition. Mrs. McDavit grabbed me by the arm. “Hush,” she told me. “Hush! Don’t talk so loud. My daughter had a friend who was fired for doing that. They wouldn’t give her a reference—she’d worked for ’em more’n two years.”