Page:Ten Days in a Mad-House (1887).djvu/109

Rh in me. The visitor got very nervous and began to insist that he could not take a girl unless his wife saw her first. Then the agent, when he found it impossible to make him take a girl, tried to induce the gentleman to join the bureau. “It will only cost you $2 for the use of the bureau for a month,” he urged, but the visitor began to get more nervous and to make his way to the door. I thought he was frightened because it was an agency, and it amused me to hear how earnestly he pleaded that really he dare not employ a girl without his wife’s consent.

After the escape of the visitor we all resumed our former positions and waited for another visitor. It came in the shape of a red-haired Irish girl.

“Well, you are back again?” was the greeting given her.

“Yes. That woman was horrible. She and her husband fought all the time, and the cook carried tales to the mistress. Sure and I wouldn’t live at such a place. A splendid laundress, with a good ‘karacter,’ don’t need to stay in such places, I told them. The lady of the house made me wash every other day; then she wanted me to be dressed like a lady, sure, and wear a cap while I was at work. Sure and it’s no good laundress who can be dressed up while at work, so I left her.”

The storm had scarcely passed when another girl with fiery locks entered. She had a good face and a bright one, and I watched her closely.

“So you are back, too. You are troublesome,” said the agent. Her eyes flashed as she replied:

“Oh, I’m troublesome, am I? Well, you can take a poor girl’s money, anyway, and then you tell her she’s troublesome. It wasn’t troublesome when you took my money; and where is the position? I have walked all over the city, wearing out my shoes and spending my money in car-fare. Now, is this how you treat poor girls?”