Most of the girls kick with the same leg all the time. I tried changing off now and then. With the four-hole machine, using the left leg meant sitting a little to the right side. Also I tried once using my left hand to give the right a rest. Thus the boss observed me. “Now see here, m'girl, why don't you do things the way you're taught? That ain't the right way!” He caught me at the wrong moment. I didn't care whether the earth opened up and swallowed me. “I know the right way of runnin' this machine good as you do,” I fairly glared at him. “I'm sick and tired of doin' it the right way, and if I want to do it wrong awhile for a change I guess I can!” “You ain't goin' to get ahead in this world if you don't do things _right_, m'girl.” And he left me to my fate. At noon that day the girls got after me. “You're a fool to work the way you do. You never took a drink all this mornin'—jus' sit there kickin', kickin', kickin'. Where d'ya think ya goin' to land? In a coffin, that's where. The boss won't thank ya for killin' yourself on his old foot press, neither. You're jus' a fool, workin' like that.” And that's just what I decided. “Lay off now and then.” Yes indeed, I was going to lay off now and then. “I see myself breakin' my neck for thirteen dollars a week,” Bella chipped in. “You said it!” from all the others. So I kicked over 16,000 times that day and let it go as my final swan song. No more breaking records for me. My head thumped, thumped, thumped all that night. After that I strolled up front for a drink and a gossip or back to a corner of the wash room where two or three were sure to be squatting on some old stairs, fussing over the universe. When the boss was up on the other end of the floor, sometimes I just sat at my machine and did nothing. It hurt something within my soul at first, but my head and hands and legs and feet and neck and general disposition felt considerably better.