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 probation. In order to get safely over the period of probation she sometimes resorts to expedients that are equally humorous and pathetic. It is generally a condition of the greater factories that a girl shall not live at a greater distance from her work than she can travel in an hour. Knowing this, a quite astonishing proportion of the girls who apply at the Arsenal declare that they live in Woolwich. But at the end of two months, when they have proved their worth, and know they will not be dismissed, and have to go through a strict examination before receiving their badges, the number of "removals" they confess to would have been enough to employ all the pantechnicons in the district.

Tommy's sister (when she is a married woman) loves few things more than a good story, and hates nothing so much as the angular-looking maiden lady of uncertain age, with thin lips and a mouth like a slit, who lies in wait for her at the gate of her factory; or calls on her at