"'Listen to me, Sam Reisinger, there's no such thing as man's work, and there's no such thing as woman's work,' I said to him. 'Work's work, and it makes no difference who does it, as long as it gets done! "'Take dressmaking,' I said to him. 'I suppose you call that woman's work. Then how about Worth, and those other big men dressmakers? "'Maybe you think cooking is woman's work. Then how about the chefs at the big hotels?' I said to him. "'Maybe you think washing is woman's work. Then how about the steam laundries where nearly all the shirt ironers are men?' I said to him. "'Maybe you think that working in somebody else's house is woman's work. Then how about that butler up at Miss Spencer's?' I said to him. "'And maybe we can bungle through with a few bearings for a while, can we?' I said to him, very polite. 'Well, let me tell you one thing, Sam Reisinger, if that's the way you think of women, you can bungle over to the movies with yourself tomorrow night. I'm not going with you!'" For a long time after that when things went wrong, Mary only had to recall some of the remarks which had been made to a certain Mr. Sam Reisinger on a certain Sunday afternoon, and she always felt better for it. "What are the men saying now?" she asked Archey at the end of their first good week. "They're not saying much, but I think they're up to something. They've called a special meeting for tonight." The next morning was Sunday. Mary was hardly downstairs when Archey called. "I've found out about their meeting last night," he said. "They have appointed a committee to try to have a boycott declared on our bearings." It didn't take Mary long to see that this might be a mortal thrust unless it were parried. "But how can they?" she asked. "They are going to try labour headquarters first. 'Unfair to labour'--that's what they are going to claim it is--to allow women to do what they're doing here. They're going to try to have a boycott declared, so that no union man will handle Spencer bearings, the teamsters won't truck them, the railways won't ship them, the metal workers and mechanics won't install them, and no union man will use a tool or a machine that has a Spencer bearing in it. That's their program. That's what they are going to try to do." From over the distance came the memory of Ma'm Maynard's words: "I tell you, Miss Mary, it has halways been so and it halways will: Everything that lives has its own natural enemy--and a woman's natural enemy--eet is man!" "No, sir!" said Mary to herself, as resolutely as ever, "I don't believe it. They're trying to gain their point--that's all--the same as I'm trying to gain mine.... But aren't they fighting hard when they do a thing like that...!"