As the men saw the night approaching, their talk would turn more and more to the absorbing subjects of costume and the girls whom they meant to take with them. There are shops which do business at letting out ready-made disguises for such occasions, and I have repeatedly seen these hard-working industrious fellows go deep into their pockets, to the extent even of half a week’s pay, for the use for a few hours of some tawdry make-up of velvet and spangles and lace, which reeked with promiscuous wear. And the outlay did not end with dress, for there remained tickets of admission, and the cost of at least two suppers for each and of not a little drinking. It was exceptional for any one of them to come home drunk, and the man who did was sure of a course of steady bantering for days, but some drinking was the rule for the Saturday nights that were given to masquerade. When a play would fall in place in the order of amusement, the men were sure to return by midnight, and there was always then less evidence of drink. All forms of public gayety seemed scrupulously confined to Saturday nights and Sundays. The men could not have been more punctual at their work, and the habitual week-day evening was the far from exciting one in Mrs. Schulz’s sitting-room, which I have described. There they regularly gathered after supper, and smoked, and romped with the children, and played cards, and read. I was usually off for bed by eight o’clock, for nothing less than ten hours of sleep would fit me for the ten hours of labor in the factory, and the others would follow an hour or two later. [Illustration: MRS. SCHULZ’S BOARDING-HOUSE. There we regularly gathered after supper, and smoked, and romped with the children, and played cards, and read.] The morning brought the unwelcome summons to get up in what seemed the dead of night and but an hour or two after the time of going to bed. Cold water would have its rousing effect, as, also, a breakfast by lamplight with an anxious eye on the clock, and then a rush through the sharp air of the morning twilight until you were caught in the living stream which poured through the factory-gate. Work was begun on the minute, and your ear caught the sharp metallic clink of the mowers as the workmen pushed the frames down the loading-platforms to the cars. Even within the brick enclosures and in the stinging cold of the winter air, there arose inevitably with the sound the association of meadows fragrant with the perfume of new-mown timothy and clover drying in the hazy warmth of a long summer afternoon.