The Metropolitan clock chimed for the first time that day as I halted at a subway entrance and bought a newspaper. Having determined to get work that would enable me to sit down until my feet and limbs stopped aching, my heart throbbed with pleasure on finding an advertisement for addressers. Knowing the importance of being among the early arrivals, I hurried to the place indicated. “We pay one dollar a thousand,” the assistant manager, a young girl, informed me. “And please be careful with the file.” It needed only a glance at the return address on the envelopes to assure me that we were working for one of the most widely known woman’s magazines in the world. Sure of having found a good job even at one dollar a thousand I glanced around me. The loft was in a large corner building and might have been well lighted as well as comfortably heated had the windows been washed. At first I mistook them for ground glass. There were only fourteen women besides myself, though judging by the chairs and tables accommodations had been provided for fully two hundred. Having seen the number of women turned away by the mail-order house, this scarcity of workers caused me considerable surprise. Drawing a card from the file I stared at it in astonishment. Instead of a distinctly written name and address in black ink on a white card this thing was in two shades of purple, the name and address stamped in purple on a thin glazed purple paper which was stretched on a purple cardboard frame. A woman across the table noticing my surprise explained that it was stencil-work. Becoming thoroughly engrossed by my effort to make out the cards, I was startled when some one announced that it was past eleven o’clock. Two hours and a half had passed and I had addressed twenty-seven envelopes. With a pang of horror I realized that I could not distinguish the features of women less than ten feet away. “Is this _Blank’s Magazine_?” I demanded of the assistant manager. When she replied in the affirmative my indignation, goaded by fear of having permanently injured my eyes, frothed over. “All of my life—before I was born _Blank’s Magazine_ has been proclaiming its interest in women—its efforts to help working women. Here you not only underpay them but give work to destroy their eyes. Take your file.” Snatching my hat and coat I hurried from the building without waiting to put them on. Fortunately the cold air of the street brought me to my senses. Stepping again from the building—this time clothed in my right mind as well as my hat and coat—I took the newspaper from my pocket for the purpose of consulting the help-wanted column.