“Then why soup plates?”

Squaring my shoulders I sat up very proud.

“You can eat cereals out of a soup-plate, you can drink soup, when we have it, out of a soup-plate. Indeed you can do a lot of things with a soup-plate that would be utterly impossible with either a breakfast or a dinner plate.”

“So you can,” agreed Alice. “And it saves dish-washing.”

While she washed up our dinner things I made an account-book of the paper in which our purchases had been wrapped. From it, under date of November 14, 1916, I now copy:

Gas stove.10 2 chops.10
gas pipe.10 ½lb butter.20
2 s. plates.10 1pt milk.07
2 cups.10 1 cereal.05
2 table spoons.05 1 bread.06
2 tea spoons.05 5lbs sugar.40
2 forks.05 5lbs rice.39
2 tins.05 salt.05
.60 4 bananas.05
1.42 6 apples.05
$2.02 1.42

The fruit was bought at a push-cart market, but all the other eatables at standard shops. In one particular we were fortunate. Being Southerners we preferred rice to white potatoes.

The following morning we were both out before the Metropolitan clock announced eight—Alice to walk to Jones Bros. while I hurried to look for a new job. Answering advertisements I called at six places before ten o’clock. At each place the applicants far outnumbered the positions to be filled. For one clerical position there were twenty-one applicants, an office wishing two addressers turned away thirty-seven. At a candy factory I found the entrance so jammed by women, all answering the advertisement, that a glance assured me it would be useless to wait my turn.

Journeying farther up-town I made my seventh call. It proved to be one of the largest publishing houses in the country and they advertised for both addressers and folders. My face must have expressed disappointment on learning from the manager that he had already taken on all he needed. As I started toward the door he called me back.

“That woman over there,” he said, indicating a vacant chair, “was telephoned for. One of her children had come home from school sick. If she doesn’t come back in the morning and you are on time I’ll give you her seat. Be sure to be here before eight o’clock.”