The following morning we were both out before the Metropolitan clock announced eight—Alice to walk to Jones Bros. while I hurried to look for a new job. Answering advertisements I called at six places before ten o’clock. At each place the applicants far outnumbered the positions to be filled. For one clerical position there were twenty-one applicants, an office wishing two addressers turned away thirty-seven. At a candy factory I found the entrance so jammed by women, all answering the advertisement, that a glance assured me it would be useless to wait my turn. Journeying farther up-town I made my seventh call. It proved to be one of the largest publishing houses in the country and they advertised for both addressers and folders. My face must have expressed disappointment on learning from the manager that he had already taken on all he needed. As I started toward the door he called me back. “That woman over there,” he said, indicating a vacant chair, “was telephoned for. One of her children had come home from school sick. If she doesn’t come back in the morning and you are on time I’ll give you her seat. Be sure to be here before eight o’clock.” Seven-thirty the next morning found me at the publishing house and true to his word the manager gave me the vacant chair. Although monotonous, folding, like addressing is not unpleasant work. Busy fingers did not prevent those women from talking and I soon heard a lot of gossip about several of my neighbors. The young woman across the table from me was the wife of a chauffeur. As she worked, she used her handkerchief from time to time to absorb tears that rolled over her baby-doll cheeks. Her husband, so the whisper ran around, was in love with his employer. This woman, according to his wife, not only gave the chauffeur handsome presents, but held long conversations with him over the telephone the first thing in the morning and the last thing at night. Besides, she took him to the theatre with her and had him lunch and dine with her at obscure road-houses when they went alone for long drives into the country. “How many children have you?” I asked the weeping woman. She tossed her head scornfully and assured me and all in ear-shot that she hadn’t any and never had intended to have any, thank God! Not she, to lose her shape for a child! Later on I remarked to an older woman who sat next to me that I didn’t see why the chauffeur’s wife should be so broken up—she called her husband a scoundrel and they had no children. “A married woman hadn’t ought to have to work,” my neighbor reproved me. “Unless her husband is sick or misfortunate.”