"This is a wonderful work you are doing here, Miss Spencer," said one.
"You think so?" she asked. "You mean for the women to be making bearings?"
"Yes. Weren't you surprised yourself when your idea worked out so well?"
"But it wasn't my idea," she said. "It was worked out in the war—oh, ever so much further than we have gone here. We are only making bearings, but when the war was on, women made rifles and cartridges and shells, cameras and lenses, telescopes, binoculars and aeroplanes. I can't begin to tell you the things they made—every part from the tiniest screws as big as the end of this pin—to rough castings. They did designing, and drafting, and moulding, and soldering, and machining, and carpentering, and electrical work—even the most unlikely things—things you would never think of—like ship-building, for instance!
"Ship-building! Imagine!" she continued.
"Why, one of the members of the British Board of Munitions said that if the war had lasted a few months longer, he could have guaranteed to build a battleship from keel to crow's-nest—with all its machinery and equipment—all its arms and ammunition—everything on it—entirely by woman's labour!
"So, you see, I can't very well get conceited about what we are doing here—although, of course, I am proud of it, too, in a way—"
She stopped then, afraid they would think she was gossipy—and she let them talk for a while. The conversation turned to her last advertisement.
"Are you sure your figures are right?" asked one. "Are you sure your women workers are turning out bearings so much cheaper than the men did?"
"They are not my figures," she told them. "They are taken from an audit by a firm of public accountants."