Argosy, Vol. 122, No. 1 — page 127: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

BREAKFAST, DINNER, AND SUPPER. Breakfast, which ordinarily is just break- fast, was extraordinarily breakfast in this place of Giles’s. It was an all-day meal; and the restaurant hired more help and kept less of it than any other station in the Giles system. Girls came on the “ early” at 6 o’clock in the morning. More girls came on at 10:30. At 3 in the afternoon, the earlies were relieved, and rushed out to keep their dates, or to the movies. At 5:30 they came back again, to toil until 8. Every day at 3, certain girls drew their “time” at the cashier’s desk, and came no more to Num- ber Ten. They couldn’t stand the game, got “in dutch ” with the manager, didn’t suit, or simply quit. Male help was more stable. Manager and chef were fixtures. , Counter-men, bus- boys, and dish-washers changed frequently, but were not so evanescent as the wait- resses. The little, brown-eyed woman at. the cash-desk, known only as “ Cash,” and heavy-lidded, red-haired Delphine,. the head-waitress, called Number One, - were old hands. - Martha Anne was an “early.” At 3 o’clock, when the other girls on her trick _ gave place to the reliefs, she went with them to the counter, took her portion of cold rice and milk, bread and butter, and coffee, went to one of the rear tables, and . swallowed a%much of it as she could. Then, seeing customers still flocking to the tables which had been her “station,” she re- adjusted her apron and bows, and went back to duty. Because she was personable, and didn’t wear a hair-net, and didn’t talk to the rest of them as they talked to each other, the other girls on the trick did not tell her that she was “ off the floor.” For nearly the same reason, Delphine of the auburn locks shrugged her shoulders and muttered: va | should worry if she works her as head o For stated causes, Martha Anne had for- feited title to consideration from the house- manager; and her tired back and aching feet were nothing to him. He grinned when he saw her go back to her station. The reliefs winked at one another and promptly 117 \ reapportioned the tables, leaving something ‘more than a generous share of them to Mar- tha Anne, and let her “ go to it.” Unlovely of disposition she could never be; but by the time the hour was near which she understood to terminate her day’s work, Martha Anne was in a frame of mind which was as nearly vicious as was possible to a sweet young person of her caliber. Insinuatien, innuendo, double entendre, and frank, brutish coarseness—all had been her lot from her “ trade,” with never a wholesome smile or -an honest look to lighten the day. Martha Anne felt posi- tively dirty under the brunt of it. And then the insolent-eyed Delphine had drawled in her ear: “ Sa-ay, girlie, yuh must look pleasant. to th’ customers, yuh know. That face ll spoil th’ trade.” Never had Delphine’s own. stylishly- enameled countenance been in greater dan- ger of decoration with a tomato-omelette. For Martha Anne had been informed of> her two and one-half hours of. gratuitous labor. “ Cat!” thought Martha Anne to herself, and “ Dogs!” of the customers. And Mar- tha Anne was like unto Caesar: She had burned her ships, and she could not turn back. Jimmie Candee, the Candy Kid, of the Eighth Signal Corps, was out “ on his own,” looking for a broken ground wire. The spot where he had been. sent to look had, twenty minutes previously, been one of the hottest corners in a particularly warm sector of the Argonne-Meuse fighting. Fritz had come over for a visit, had stayed but briefly, and had gone back— quite a bit farther back than the place from which he had started. Yankee infantry had seen him home, and was busy returning the call. ~ It was in the course of the demonstration attendant upon Fritz’s reception that the wire had been broken which the Candy Kid had been sent to find and repair. . Jimmie walked over a low hill. There were trenches at the crest of it; and there were more trenches down below in the val- ley, with a tangle of posts and barbed wire cComiclbooks.com