"Only one way I am asking," Mrs. Saphir said. 

 "I wouldn't even give you a transfer ticket," Mr. Seiden declared, and once more he banged the door behind him with force sufficient to shiver its ground-glass panel. 

 Mrs. Saphir waited for an interval of ten minutes and then she gathered her shawl about her; and with a final adjustment of her crape bonnet she shuffled out of the office. 

 Miss Bessie Saphir was a chronic "learner"—that is to say, she had never survived the period of instruction in any of the numerous shirt, cloak, dress, and clothing factories in which she had sought employment; and at the end of her second month in the workshop of the Sanspareil Waist Company she appeared to know even less about the manufacture of waists than she did at the beginning of her first week. 

 "How could any one be so dumm!" Philip Sternsilver cried as he held up a damaged garment for his employer's inspection, "I couldn't understand at all. That's the tenth waist Bessie Saphir ruins on us." 

 "Dumm!" Mr. Seiden exclaimed. "What d'ye mean, dumb? You are getting altogether too independent around here, Sternsilver." 

 "Me—independent!" Philip rejoined. "For what reason I am independent, Mr. Seiden? I don't understand what you are talking about at all." 

 "No?" Seiden said. "Might you don't know you are calling my wife's relation dumb, Sternsilver? From a big mouth a feller like you could get himself into a whole lot of trouble." 

 "Me calling your wife's relation dumb, Mr. Seiden?" Sternsilver cried in horrified accents. "I ain't never said nothing of the sort. What I am saying is that that dummer cow over there—that Bessie Saphir—is dumm. I ain't said a word about your wife's relations." 

 "Loafer!" Seiden shouted in a frenzy. "What d'ye mean?" 

 Sternsilver commenced to perspire. 

 "What do I mean?" he murmured. "Why, I am just telling you what I mean." 

 "If it wouldn't be our busy season," Seiden continued, "I would fire you right out of here und fertig. Did you ever hear the like? Calls my wife's cousin, Miss Bessie Saphir, a dummer Ochs!" 

 "How should I know she's your wife's cousin, Mr. Seiden?" Sternsilver protested. "Did she got a label on her?" 

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