"No, I'm not disguised," Hamilton responded, "and the badge is just to show that I have the right to ask you these questions."
"I do not know anyzing at all about it," the milliner objected, "but if you say you have ze right!" she shrugged her shoulders and sat down.
Hamilton promptly picked up his portfolio, opened it on his knee, and began to put some of the queries required. He got along well enough while the formal questions about name, address, nature of work, and so forth were in hand, but the question about the number of hours worked during the year made the woman most indignant.
"What is ze good of a question like zat?" she asked. "What does it matter if ze girls work all ze night to finish ze hat for ze gr-rand occasion, ze wedding, ze garden party? When zey work more, zey get more pay!"
"Of course," said Hamilton diplomatically, "with such a number of society people as you deal with that must happen very often."
It was a successful move. The Frenchwoman beamed on him.
"In ze season, yes, perhaps twenty or thirty evenings, but even zen ze girl go home by twelve o'clock."
Hamilton smiled to himself as he did a little figuring and filled up the schedule to show the prevailing practice followed in the establishment during the year. He was a little dubious about asking the questions concerning the wages paid, but he found no trouble.
"In your kind of work," he said, "I suppose the girls get good wages."
"Ze very best," the woman answered, and Hamilton found that this was true. Indeed, so anxious was she to impress on him how much better were the wages paid by her than those in other establishments that the boy secured a large amount of unexpected valuable information. But he came to a dead stop on the question of raw material used during the year. For the material used in wholesale work the figures were easily secured, but the retail trade was another matter. This the milliner really could not give, for, as she pointed out, most of the few especial customers she had, brought the materials to her to be made up, and she had no means of knowing what had been paid for them. Nor would she even try to make an estimate.