Not having planned to have Polly spend her life addressing envelopes or folding circulars, Monday morning found me again on the tramp, looking for a job. At three places I turned away without making my application known—having learned from experience that no business occupying a few small rooms has need of twoscore or more workers. The fourth place advertised for girls to count coupons. The woman manager expressed regret at having filled her last vacancy. Then she added:
“If you apply on the street floor, maybe Mr. Spencer will take you on. Tell him that Mrs. Linwood sent you.”
The street floor, to my eyes, had the appearance of a sort of general store—practically every article one could wish for was to be seen and attractively arranged. On finding Mr. Spencer I delivered Mrs. Linwood’s message.
“If you are willing to begin at seven dollars a week I can place you at once,” he told me.
Recalling that it was a dollar more than offered by the department store and, being in walking distance, would require no car-fare, I promptly accepted.
“Been to lunch?” Mr. Spencer inquired. “Better go now. Take your full hour. When you get back report to me.”
Halting on the other side of the street I looked up at the sign across the front of the building. What had appeared to me to be a general store was the chief premium station of a widely known company that claimed to do business on a profit-sharing basis. Reading the advertisements of this firm I had always set them down as a set of crooks catering to the American craving to get something for nothing.
So I had engaged to work for crooks!
CHAPTER IV
AGAINST A RUSH OF THE HERD
On my return from lunch Mr. Spencer escorted me to a counter marked “Men’s Department” and introduced me to the head of stock, Nora Joyce, a neat young girl with serious blue eyes. After introducing me to the other girls in the department Nora gave me the stand next to her own and set about explaining the work to me.