Everybody expected it.
When we had chanted "The Star Spangled Banner" not more than
eight times, we adjourned. America is a very great country, but
it is not yet heaven, with electric lights and plush fittings, as
the speakers professed to believe. My listening mind went back
to the politicians in the saloon, who wasted no time in talking
about freedom, but quietly made arrangements to impose their will
on the citizens.
"The judge is a great man, but give thy presents to the clerk,"
as the proverb saith.
And what more remains to tell? I cannot write connectedly,
because I am in love with all those girls aforesaid, and some
others who do not appear in the invoice. The typewriter is an
in-stitution of which the comic papers make much capital, but she
is vastly convenient. She and a companion rent a room in a
business quarter, and, aided by a typewriting machine, copy MSS.
at the rate of six annas a page. Only a woman can operate a
typewriting machine, because she has served apprenticeship to the
sewing machine. She can earn as much as one hundred dollars a
month, and professes to regard this form of bread-winning as her
natural destiny. But, oh! how she hates it in her heart of
hearts! When I had got over the surprise of doing business with
and trying to give orders to a young woman of coldly, clerkly
aspect intrenched behind gold-rimmed spectacles, I made inquiries
concerning the pleasures of this independence. They liked
it - indeed they did. 'Twas the natural fate of almost all
girls - the recognized custom in America - and I was a barbarian
not to see it in that light.
"Well, and after?" said I. "What happens?"
"We work for our bread."
"And then what do you expect?"
"Then we shall work for our bread."
"Till you die?"
"Ye-es - unless - "
"Unless what? This is your business, you know. A man works
until he dies."
"So shall we" - this without enthusiasm - "I suppose."
Said the partner in the firm, audaciously: - "Sometimes we marry
our employees - at least, that's what the newspapers say."
The hand banged on half a dozen of the keys of the machine at
once. "Yet I don't care. I hate it - I hate it - I hate it - and
you needn't look so!"
The senior partner was regarding the rebel with grave-eyed
reproach.
"I thought you did," said I. "I don't suppose American girls are
much different from English ones in instinct."
"Isn't it Theophile Gautier who says that the only difference
between country and country lie in the slang and the uniform of
the police?"
Now, in the name of all the gods at once, what is one to say to a
young lady (who in England would be a person) who earns her own
bread, and very naturally hates the employ, and slings
out-of-the-way quotations at your head?
