" Well,” he said, " did you get along all right?”

" I think so,” she replied, very respectfully.

" Um,” he replied, for want of something better, and walked on.

Under better material conditions, this kind of work would not have been so bad, but the new socialism which involves pleasant working conditions for employees had not then taken hold upon manufacturing companies.

The place smelled of the of the oil of the machines and the new leather-a combination which, added to the stale odors of the building, was not pleasant even on cold weather.  The floor, though regularly swept every evening, presented a littered surface.  Not the slightest provision had been made for the comfort of the employees, the idea being that something was gained by giving them as little and making the work as hard and unremunerative as possible.  What we know of foot-rests, swivel-back chairs, dinning-rooms for the girls, clean aprons and curling irons supplied free, and decent cloak room, were unthought of.  The washrooms were disagreeable, crude, if not foul places, and the whole atmosphere was sordid.

Carrie looked about her, after she had drunk a tinful of water from a bucket in one corner, for a place to sit and eat.  The other girls had ranged themselves about the windows or the work-benches of those of the men who had gone out.  She saw no place which did not hold a couple or a group of girls, and being too timid to think of intruding herself, she sought out her machine and, seated upon her stool, opened her lunch on her lap.  There she sat listening to the chatter and comment about her.  It was for the most part, silly and graced by the current slang, Several of the men in the room exchanged compliments with the girls at long range.

" Say, Kitty,” called to a girl who was doing a waltz step in a few feet of space near one of the windows, " are you going to the ball with me?”

" Look out, Kitty,” called another, " you’ll jar your back hair.”

" Go on, Rubber,” was her only comment.

As Carrie listened to this and much more of similar familiar badinage among the men and girls, she instinctively withdrew into herself.  She was not used to this type, and felt that there was something hard and low about it all.  She feared that the young boys about would address such remarks to her-boys who, beside Drouet, seemed uncouth and ridiculous.  She made the average feminine distinction between clothes, putting worth, goodness, and distinction in a dress suit, and leaving all the unlovely qualities and those beneath notice in overalls and jumper.

She was glad when the short half hour was over and the wheels began to whirr again.  Though wearied, she would be inconspicuous.  This illusion ended when another young man passed along the aisle and poked her indifferently in the ribs with his thumb.  She turned about, indignation leaping to her eyes, but he had gone on and only once turned to grin.  She found it difficult to conquer an inclination to cry.