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Show I: Ask for I J What You :j Want i : j: By :: ;: FR.ED PAWLING (Copyright, VjLi, by W. G-. Chapman.) The new girl iu the pattern department depart-ment was so pathetically tired. Tom Roberts watched her furtively all that first day of her arrival, as she stood at the high desk next to his own, wearily sorting and checking the patterns pat-terns for the Ladies' Fashion Realm company. The other young men watched her less secretly. In fact, winks and nudges were thick in the pattern department de-partment that morning. For the new girl was undeniably a beauty. The other girls had noticed that fact too. She was hardly more than eighteen, and there was an air of breeding about her which more than one girl instinctively instinc-tively resented. Lucy Whitman was, in fact, born to better things than this six-dollar position. Her father had been a small shopkeeper, with ambitions ambi-tions for his children. 'When he diet! Lucy had to get a position, and the only one which offered was that of waitress in a restaurant. She stood that life for two months. But It was Impossible for a girl of her appearance appear-ance to endure It longer. Besides, the proprietor was angry that she refused to make up to his customers. A pretty girl meant increased trade, and he saw no harm in her accepting the cheap badinage of the clerks who frequented fre-quented his place. Lucy had always resolved to study stenography, but when she got home she was too fatigued to do anything more than slip into bed and fall asleep exhausted. If she had been like the rest of them . . . but her timid manner-repelled the class of men who came into her life, and instinctively she recoiled from the advances of the kind who would have made life at least uncompanioned. The work in the pattern department was terrible. Tom Rogers, at twenty-two, twenty-two, had been there four years. His thought of the pattern factory that was grinding away their lives and taking tak-ing toll of their youth. lie went up to the girl. "Miss Whitman," Whit-man," he said unsteadily, "you you aren't lit for this job. It's taking your life away." She looked at him with wild alarm. "I've got to," she said iu panicky tones. "You won't tell the foreman? For my sake you wen t tell him. 1 know I'm slow, but I'm doing my best I'll make gocd. 1 " He caught her by the hands. "You don't think?" he began. "You don't think ?" The idea was preosterous. "Did you think 1 wanted to make it harder for you?" he asked. Mis arms were about her. and she was weeping upon his shoulder. Her helplessness stirred him deeply. He kept his arm tenderly around her as they walked to the elevator. "I am going to se you to your home, Lucy," he said. That was the beginning of their real acquaintance. But in the factory they continued to appear as strangers. This love that had come to them was too sweet, too intimate for public knowledge. knowl-edge. It had been the simplest thing in the world. There never was any formal for-mal declaration. That night, as they parted, she raised her lips to his, more like a sister than a sweetheart. On Sundays he took her on a trolley into the country. And they began to dream about the future. The irony of that bit info Tom's soul. Suppose he managed to get fifteen fif-teen dollars a week ultimately! There was no promotion out of the pattern department. It was a blind alley; the only man who got more than fifteen was the foreman, and his wage was twenty-three. Boys came into the factory fac-tory and drifted out to other jobs. Girls entered, to marry, or well, they disappeared after a time, as the young men did. Tom had been there longer than any other. At last he told Lucy frankly of his fears. "There's nothing to it at all," he said. "And I don't know what to do. I guess I'm not fit for anything else, except a laborer's job maybe. I came from a country town, and my folks never amounted to much there. I had a letter to Devoe. He put me where I am. I'm just one of the wastage, Lucy." "No!" she cried. "You are worth all of them puf together, dear. And you are going to succeed. I know you are." "I will!" he said, with clenched hands. But how? At twenty -two he was as helpless in the heart of this grinding civilization of commerce as a savage might be. He saw rich" men everywhere, every-where, men who rode in automobiles, who stood, in evening dress, at the theater entrances. How did they get their chances? And why couldn't he?" "Say, Rogers, did you hear Brown is going to leave?" asked one of the men at the factory one day. "Got a ten-thousand-dollar job with the Women's Cloak and Skirt people. Devoe's pretty mad at losing him, I guess, but everybody in his department is looking look-ing for Brown's job." Ten thousand dollars a year! Tom felt a surge of disgust within him. He could have done as well as Brown. And he knew the business from the bottom up. He had not been there four years for nothing! And Devoe had lied to him. . . . During the lunch hour he went into Devoe's office, passing the swing door that separated the factory from the sales department for the first time in his life. He was burning all over with anger against the man. He walked past the office boy, straight into the room where Devoe w-as seated alone, his feet on the table, looking out of the window. "You haven't told me the truth!' he heard himself crying in fury. "You told me four years ago there would be a chance for me. When's it coming off? Why don't you give me Mr. Brown's place?" Devoe took down his feet and a flush of anger, which crept over his face, was succeeded by amusement as he looked at the despairing figure before be-fore him. "My dear boy, who are you? I don't know you from Adam," he said. Tom thought he was lying. "I brought you a letter four years ago, and you said you wouldn't forget me. and that you tried out new men on the road," said Tom. Devoe was interested. "Want n chance on the road, eh?" he asked. "Well, you might have had it several times. Why in thunder didn't you remind re-mind me? Think I've got time to waste on every jake that brings me a letter?" . . "Well, I want it." answered Tom hotly. "Think you could sell patterns to the ladies' eh? Got a nice suit? Got a smile? Know how to jolly 'em along? Say, if you've waited four years for this, and allowing that you've got a forcefulness about you, I don't know as I won't give you a chance. Not Brown's job at present, young man. But if twenty per. and a commission looks all right to you for a starter, ycu can come back this afternoon aft-ernoon and I'll talk it ever with you.' And Tom found himself back in the empty pattern department. His head was whirling. Twenty and a commission! commis-sion! What sales he would make! Presently he saw Lucy at his side. "Tom! What is it. dear?" she cried amazed at his look, and clinging to him. ' " "It's It's the end of this. Lucy," he answered huskily. "I'm going od the road. Put on your hat and let's get out of here. I want to get a marriage mar-riage license before the bureau closes." '"SS She Could Hardly Manage to Tie Up the String. wages had crept up from eight dollars to twelve. All day, from eight to six, he stood at his high desk. He would unfasten a huge bundle of the paper patterns, check off the number of each one in a book, shifting them along the desk until he came to the end; then he would fasten them together and get another bundle. It was less the labor than the soul-searing soul-searing monotony of the thing. Millions Mil-lions of patterns must have passed through his hands in those four years :ind the supply was quite inexhaustible. inexhaust-ible. And Lucy was just beginning where he was now. The thought of those endless patterns pat-terns had become a nightmare. Stolidly Stol-idly the young man had stuck to his post, hoping for better things. He had wanted -to become a salesman. sales-man. Devoe, the sales manager, to whom he had had a letter of introduction, introduc-tion, had told him frankly the prospects. pros-pects. "Now and then we try out new men jn the road," he said. "You'd better get in at the bottom, and some day, when you have learned the business, your chance will come. You won't be forgotten. " That was four years ago, and since then nothing had happened. On Devoe's De-voe's rare visits to the department Tom had turned his eyes in dumb inquiry in-quiry upon him. But Devoe had never noticed him, had never spoken. Tom watched the girl day after day. The young men in the department had left her alone. They realized that she was not a "sport." as they termed it. Not for them a girl who couldn't talk and joke and give them a good time when they took her out, and flirt with Lhem, and kiss them at parting. Tom and Lucy had exchanged greetings greet-ings each morning. Once he had helped her with her sorting. But he never ventured to speak to her otherwise other-wise until that night when she stayed behind to finish up her bundle. She was white from the strain of the long standing; her hands shook over her work She could hardly manage man-age to tie up the string. When she put on her hat Tom realized real-ized that she was crying. And a -nighty rage rilled his heart at the |
