She answered that she had not.

“Well,” said the foreman, scratching his ear meditatively, “we do need a stitcher.  We like experienced help, though.  We’ve hardly got time to break people in.”  He paused and looked away out of the window.  “We might, though, put you at finishing,” he concluded reflectively.

“How much do you pay a week?” ventured Carrie, emboldened by a certain softness in the man’s manner and his simplicity of address.

“Three and a half,” he answered.

“Oh,” she was about to exclaim, but checked herself and allowed her thoughts to die without expression.

“We’re not exactly in need of anybody,” he went on vaguely, looking her over as one would a package.  “You can come on Monday morning, though,” he added, " and I’ll put you to work.”

“Thank you,” said Carrie weakly.

“If you come, bring an apron,” he added.

He walked away and left her standing by the elevator, never so much as inquiring her name.

While the appearance of the shop and the announcement of the price paid per week operated very much as a blow to Carrie’s fancy, the fact that work of any kind was offered after so rude a round of experience was gratifying.  She could not begin to believe that she would take the place, modest as her aspirations were.  She had been used to better than that.  Her mere experience and the free out-of-door life of the country caused her nature to revolt at such confinement.  Dirt had never been her share.  Her sister’s flat was clean.  This place was grimy and low, the girls were careless and hardened.  They must be bad-minded and hearted, she imagined.  Still, a place had been offered her.  Surely Chicago was not so bad if she could find one place in one day.  She might find another and better later.

Her subsequent experiences were not of a reassuring nature, however.  From all the more pleasing or imposing places she was turned away abruptly with the most chilling formality.  In other where she applied only the experienced were required.  She met with painful rebuffs, the most trying of which had been in a manufacturing cloak house, where she had gone to the fourth floor to inquire.

“No, no,” said foreman, a rough, heavily built individual, who looked after a miserably lighted workshop, “we don’t want any one.  Don’t come here.”

With the wane of the afternoon went her hopes, her courage, and her strength.  She had been astonishingly persistent.  So earnest an effort was well deserving of a better reward.  On every hand, to her fatigued senses, the great business portion grew larger, harder, more stolid in its indifference.  It seemed as if it was all closed to her, that the struggle was too fierce for her to hope to do anything at all.  Men and women hurried by in long, shifting lines.  She felt the flow of the tide of effort and interest felt her own helplessness without quite realizing