As he spoke, the clock struck twelve, and an electric bell sounded.
“Number 25. One!” cried Polly, clearly and distinctly. A brisk-looking girl whisked some dishes on a tray, and started for the door, beside which she paused to receive a celluloid check from a girl who sat at a high desk, with a big book, a box of checks of varying values, and a cash-box before her.
“That’s the cashier,” continued the father, who had paused to mutter an “Ave” while this was occurring. “She looks in her big book for the order belonging to 25, and gives the girl a check according. It’s a ready-money business here. The waiters are all numbered as well as the bells, and take their turn in regular rotation.”
“The discipline is truly military,” observed Mr. Clare.
“Ah! ye’re conversant with Sunday schools, and that’s why ye take notice of the same,” said Father McClosky.
“And who of these are volunteer workers?” asked Ernest Clare, watching closely the busy scene before him.
“All of them are that,” returned the father; “but Miss Sally, Miss Polly, the cashier, treasurer, secretary, and six cooks get regular salaries. The man that drives the wagon is an expressman by trade, and owns his team; he is hired by the year, and, being a stockholder and patron, charges very fairly. As for these girls and boys, they enjoy the work. There are regular relays of them; and these are arranged so as to intersperse work with books and healthful play, according to the rhyme. On Saturdays and Sundays, the teachers and some of the factory hands take their turn at cooking—as sub-cooks, that is—and waiting; and, sure, it’s a great diversion to them, especially the teachers, after using their brains all the week.”
“Rest is really only a change of labor, then, to them?”
“It’s purely voluntary, ye know,” said the priest. “None of them need do a hand’s turn av they don’t like, though I won’t say but what public opinion would have some weight; but those that are weak or sickly Miss Sally looks out for, and won’t let them do a stroke more than is good for them.”
“Miss Sally has it in her power to make or mar everything, it seems to me.”