boards, and no balusters. But she trudged up the long flight hopefully.
The next floor seemed to be full of whirring looms, and the noise was, as Patty described it afterward, like the buzzing of a billion bees! But, asking no further directions, she ascended the next staircase and the next, until she found herself on the fourth floor.
Several people were bustling about here, all seeming to be very busy and preoccupied.
“Where is Department G?” she inquired of a man hurrying by.
“Ask at the desk,” he replied, without pausing.
This was ambiguous, as there were more than a score of desks about, each tenanted by a busy man, more often than not accompanied by a stenographer.
“Oh, dear, what a place!” thought Patty. No one would attend to her wants; no one seemed to notice her. She believed she could stand there all day if she chose, without being spoken to.
Clearly, she must take the initiative.
She saw a pleasant-faced woman at a desk, and decided to address her.
“Where is Department G, please?” she asked.
“G?” said the woman, looking blank.
“Yes, G. The man downstairs told me it was on the fourth floor. Isn’t this the fourth floor?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Then, where is Department G?”
“G?”
“Yes, G!”
“I don’t know, I’m sure.”
“Who does know?”
“I don’t know.”
The absurdity of this conversation made Patty smile, which seemed to irritate the other.
“I can’t help it if I don’t know,” she snapped out. “I’m new here, myself; only came yesterday. I don’t know where G is, I’m sure.”
“Excuse me,” said Patty, sorry that she had smiled, and she turned away.
She caught a red-headed boy, as he passed, whistling, and said:
“Do you know where Department G is?”
“Sure!” said the boy, grinning at her. “Sashay straight acrost de room. Pipe de guy wit’ de goggles?”
“Thank you,” said Patty, restraining her desire to smile at the funny little chap.
She went over to the desk indicated. The man seated there looked at her over his glasses, and said:
“To embroider?”
“Yes,” said Patty.
“Take a chair. Wait a few moments. I’m busy.”
Relieved at having reached her goal, Patty sat down in the chair indicated and waited. She waited five minutes and then ten, and then fifteen.
The man was busy; there was no doubt of that. He dashed off memoranda, gave them to messengers, telephoned, whisked drawers open and shut, and seemed to be in a very whirl of business.
As there was no indication of a cessation, Patty grew impatient, at last, and said:
“Can you attend to my business soon? If not, I’ll call some other day.”
“Yes,” said the man, passing his hand across his brow a little wearily. He looked tired, and overworked, and Patty felt sorry for him.
But he whirled round in his office chair and asked her quite civilly what she wanted.
“You advertised for embroiderers,” began Patty, feeling rather small and worthless, “so I came——”
“Yes, yes,” said the man, as she paused. “Can you embroider? We use only the best. Have you samples of your work?”
“I have,” said Patty, beginning to untie her box.
But her fingers trembled, and she couldn’t unknot the cord.
The man took it from her, not rudely, but as if every moment were precious. Deftly he opened the parcel, and gave a quick glance at Patty’s exquisite needlework on the doilies and centrepieces she had brought.
“Do it yourself?” he asked, already closing the box again.
“Yes, of course,” said Patty, indignant at the implication.
“No offence; that’s all right. Your work goes. Report at Department B. Good-day.”
He handed her the box, whirled round to his desk, and was immediately at his work again.
Patty realised she was dismissed, and, taking her box, she started for the stairs.
She passed the red-headed boy again, and feeling almost as if she were meeting an old friend in a strange land, she said: “Where is Department B?”
“Caught on, didjer?” he grinned. “Good fer youse! B, first floor,—that way.”
He pointed a grimy finger in the direction she should take, and went on, whistling. Down the three flights of stairs went Patty, and thanks to the clarity of the red-headed one’s direction, she soon found Department B.
This was in charge of a sharp-faced woman, rather past middle age.
“Sent by Mr. Myers?” she inquired, looking at Patty coldly.
“I was sent by the man in Department G,” returned Patty. “He said my work would do, and that I was to report to you.”
“All right; how much do you want?” said the woman.
“How much do you pay?” returned Patty.
“Don’t be impertinent, miss! I mean how much work do you want?”
“Oh,” said Patty, who was quite innocent of any intent to offend. “Why, I want enough to last a week.”
“Well, that depends on how fast you work,” said the woman, speaking with some asperity. “Come now, do you want a dozen, or two dozen, or what?”
Patty was strongly tempted to say: “What, thank you!” but she refrained, knowing it was no occasion for foolery.
“I don’t know till I see them,” she replied. “Are they elaborate pieces?”
“Here they are,” said the woman, taking some pieces of work from a box. Her tone seemed to imply that she was conferring an enormous favour on Patty by showing them.
They were rather large centrepieces, all of the same pattern, which was stamped, but not embroidered.
“There’s a lot of work on those,” remarked Patty.
“Oh, you are green!” said the woman. She jerked out another similar centrepiece, on which a small section, perhaps one-eighth of the whole, was worked in silks.
“This is what you’re to do,” she explained, in a tired, cross voice. “You work this corner, and that’s all.”
“Who works the rest?” asked Patty, amazed at this plan.
“Why, the buyer. We sell these to the shops; they sell them to people who use this finished corner as a guide to do the rest of the piece. Can’t you understand?”
“Yes, I can, now that you explain it,” returned Patty. “Then if I take a dozen, I’m to work just that little corner on each one; is that it?”
“That’s it,” said the woman, wearily, as if she were making the explanation for the thousandth time,—as she probably was.
“You can take this as a guide for yourself,” she went on,