"Tell them what, Uncle Stanley?"
"That we're going to shut down till further notice?"
Mary shook her head.
"It would be a pity to do that," she said, "because—don't you see?—there wouldn't be anything then for the four women to do."
At this new evidence of woman's utter inability to deal with large affairs, Uncle Stanley snorted. "We've got to do something," said he.
"All right, Uncle," said Mary, pressing the button on the side of her desk, "I'll do the best I can."
For in the last few minutes a plan had entered her mind—a plan which has probably already presented itself to you.
"When the war was on," she thought, "nearly all the work in that room was done by women. I wonder if I couldn't get them back there now—just to show the men what we can do—"
In answer to her ring, Joe knocked and entered, respectful admiration in his eye. You may remember Joe, "the brightest boy in the office." In the three years that Mary had known him, he had grown and was now in the transient stage between office boy and clerk—wore garters around his shirt sleeves to keep his cuffs up, feathered his hair in the front, and wore a large black enamel ring with the initial "J" worked out in "diamonds."
"Joe," she said, "I want you to bring me the employment cards of all the women who worked here during the war. And send Miss Haskins in, please; I want to write a circular letter."