"Not much of a ghost this week," the pessimistic Levine growled.
A few minutes later Mary Ames, the treasurer, bustled in. Her face was round and unattractive; she was short and had been fat, but her clothes hung about her loosely as though she had lost much flesh.
"It's a bad week, Comrades," she announced cheerfully. "Thought I wasn't going to be able to meet the union pay-roll to-day. Six dollars short. But the ten o'clock mail brought in twenty. Isadore went out and touched Mrs. Wainwright for fifty, and Branch 3 just sent in eleven from a special collection. So I've seventy-five for you. Who comes first?"
"Locke's wife is sick," Levine said mournfully.
"That's twenty dollars, isn't it?" Mary said, counting off the bills. "And you know Isadore hasn't had full pay for months. We must be a hundred and fifty back on his salary."
"Twenty-five to him," the stenographer said. "It'll give him a surprise."
"Surprise?" Levine said gloomily. "It'll give him apoplexy."
"That's forty-five gone," Mary said. "There's thirty left."
"How much do you need, Nell?" Moore asked the stenographer.
"I'm nearly a month back on my room rent. I'm in a bad hole, but I could get along with ten."