“You said it!” again Annie backed her up. Annie was a regular sack slinger. She could have hurled two men off Brooklyn Bridge with one hand. “If you was as big an' strong as me you c'u'd take 'most any chance. I'd like to see a guy try to pull anythin' on me.” I'd like to see him, too. “Some day”—Minnie wanted to drive her advice home by concrete illustration—“some day a chauffeur'll hold a handkerchief under your nose with somethin' on it. When ya come to, goodness knows where you'll be.” I began to feel a little as if I'd posed as too innocent. “You see, out West—” I began. “My Gawd!”—Minnie waved a hand scornfully—“don't be tryin' to tell me all men are angels out West.” Just then Miss Hibber poked her head in and we suddenly took ourselves out. “You go easy, now,” Minnie whispered after me. I lacked the nerve, anyhow, and they put on the finishing touches. A bricklayer would not have been so bad. How did I know the chauffeur was not working for a friend of mine? That, later on, would make it more embarrassing for him than me. I should think he would want to wring my neck. It was about time to find a new job, anyhow. But leaving the brassworks is like stopping a novel in the middle. What about Rosie and good looking Bella and her brother she was trying to rescue from the grip of the poolroom? Mame—Mame and her kaleidoscope romances, insults, and adventures? I just hate walking off and leaving it all. And the boss and Miss Hibber so nice to me about everything. Before a week is gone Minnie will be telling in an awed voice that she knows what happened. She told me not to go out with that chauffeur. I went, anyhow, and they found my mangled body in the gutter in Yonkers. III _195 Irons “Family”_ How long, I wonder, does one study or work at anything before one feels justified in generalizing? I have been re-reading of late some of the writings of some of the women who at one time or another essayed to experience first hand the life of the working girl. They have a bit dismayed me. Is it exactly fair, what they do? They thought, because they changed their names and wore cheap clothes, that, presto! they were as workers and could pass on to an uninformed reading public the trials of the worker. (Incidentally they were all trials.) I had read in the past those heartrending books and articles and found it ever difficult to hold back the tears. Sometimes they were written by an immigrant, a bona-fide worker. The tragedy of such a life in this business-ridden land of ours tore one's soul.