"My father was a country schoolmaster; I don't remember my mother, but my father died when I was, I suppose, about fourteen. My only relative, an uncle, found me a situation in a draper's shop, where I got no pay because I was so young, but where they worked me from the first thing in the morning till the last thing at night, and gave me in return my food and lodging--such lodging and such food. When I had been there three years they turned me out because I objected to the attentions of the master's son. I knew my uncle wouldn't have me; I'd known that all along. I should have been without a penny, absolutely, if it hadn't been for one of the assistants who lent me a sovereign. With that I came to town--I had ever an adventurous spirit. I went to a big shop, a famous shop; they took me on at once. A sale was coming on, they were in want of extra hands; with people of that sort they didn't want references; the assistants there never had a chance of being dishonest, they were too well looked after. They wanted no character when you came, and they gave you none when you left; you were liable to be discharged at a moment's notice, without any cause being given, and assistants were being discharged like that continually, and they gave you no character though you had been there ten years; they never do give characters, it's a rule of the house. I was there rather more than two years. I was in the mantles when I left. One afternoon just as I was going down for tea, they called me into the office, gave me my wages, and told me I could go; trade was slack, the season was over; they gave me no reason, but that was the only one I could guess that they had for sacking me." She stopped to knock the ash off her cigarette, smiling to herself as she did so. "I got another berth after--well, after experiences something like those which you have lately had; I was looking a nice sort of drab by the time I got it. It was in a shop which did a cutting trade, a low-class shop, an open-to-all-hours-of-the-night sort of shop, in a low-class neighbourhood in which people did not start buying till an hour when the shops ought to be closed. What a life I had there! You talk about what you've been doing, and you're a man." Her thoughts seemed to be harking back, but she still smiled. "I've seen columns of gush in the papers about the woes of shop assistants; if the British public only knew--if every woman had to serve a term as assistant in some of the shops I could tell them of, things would be altered pretty quick." She leaned towards him over the table.