There was no lunchroom in the neighborhood, so there was nothing for it but to go back to Schaefer's in the broiling heat of the packed trolley car, and again face the flies and perils of that dining room. As Knowlton insisted upon our being back at the factory before the one-o'clock whistle, there was no time to change one's clothes or to see about a place to sleep that night. Never had I felt so dirty as I did after a morning in the heat and soft coal smoke of Deep Harbor. Luncheon at Schaefer's proved to be "dinner," a noisy, crowded, hurried affair in which the waitress made no pretence of serving one's order, but brought what she considered a standard type of meal. There was no time to protest or change things. Knowlton, as usual, ate prodigiously, with the most annoying conceivable relish, of everything put before him, and gulped down in addition two large tumblers of watery milk.
We were back at ten minutes to one, and promptly, as the whistle blew, I stood once more before my drawing table and resumed the task. About three o'clock it seemed as if I could not stand another moment. My knees shook with fatigue and the unaccustomed strain of standing hour after hour, but there were no seats in the drafting room, and every one had to do his work standing up. At four I thought I should have to go to Knowlton's office and beg for mercy, but I didn't, because I knew he would think me unable to stick even a simple job through. At five the office staff left, including the drafting room, but there was still an hour for me. And this was to go on five and a half days a week, month after month, I thought! How did factory workers endure it without going mad?
When the six o'clock whistle blew, I could almost have cried with relief. I nearly staggered as I came into Knowlton's office, and sank into a chair mopping my face.
Knowlton grinned.
"Young gentleman from London, England, finds ten hours in an American factory on a nice warm July day something of a physical effort—shall I have that put in tomorrow's Social Notes?" he asked.
"You can't insult me, Knowlton," I said. "I am damned tired, and I have sense enough to admit it. So are you, I suspect, only you've been sitting down."
"Well," he conceded, "this elusive Senegambian I am after does make me tired—especially as friend Norwood is too sly a customer to be caught with the goods on him. If the Senegambian is there—and I've already found his footprints—we can trust Norwood to have made himself safe first. Let's go eat."
"Not at Schaefer's—God, not there!" I wailed. "I've had all I can stand of that hole."
"All right. We'll try the Rathskeller, but don't forget we haven't, as yet, any place to sleep."
I was too tired to eat when we reached the little musty hot German restaurant down under the sidewalk off State Street, but the waiter did produce a large foaming mug of German beer in which I blunted some of the acuteness of my physical aches and pains.