Page:The cry for justice - an anthology of the literature of social protest. - (IA cryforjusticea00sinc).pdf/63

 time to read, and wicker chairs in which nobody had time to sit. All that one might do was to serve the whims and accept the scoldings of women customers who knew too ill, or too well, what they wanted to buy; keep a tight rein upon one's indignation at strolling men who did not intend to buy anything that the shop advertised; be servilely smiling under the innuendoes of the high-collared floor-walkers, in order to escape their wrath; maintain a sharp outlook for the "spotters," or paid spies of the establishment; thwart, if possible, those pretending customers who were scouts sent from other stores, and watch for shop-lifters on the one hand and the firm's detectives on the other.

"It ain't a cinch, by no means"—thus ran the departing Cora Costigan's advice to her successor—"but it ain't nothin' now to what it will be in the holidays. I'd rather be dead than work in the toy-department in December—I wonder if the kids guess how we that sells 'em hates the sight of their playthings?—and I'd rather be dead an' damned than work in the accounting department. A girl friend of mine worked there last year,—only it was over to Malcare's store—an' didn't get through her Christmas Eve work till two on Christmas morning, an' she lived over on Staten Island. She overslept on the twenty-sixth, an' they docked her a half-week's pay.

"An' don't never," concluded Cora, "don't never let 'em transfer you to the exchange department. The people that exchange things all belong in the psychopathic ward at Bellevue—them that don't belong in Sing Sing. Half the goods they bring back have been used for days, an' when the store ties a tag on a sent-on-approval opera cloak, the women wriggle the tag inside, an' wear it to the theatre with a scarf draped over the string. Thank God, I'm goin' to be married!"