All the regularly engaged hands had long ago shut up their hats and cloaks in prison and gone about their business.  It was only the extras who were arriving at this late hour to show their numbers and claim their lockers.  There were comparatively few amateurs.  Most of the girls had had shop experience, but greenhorns betrayed ignorance as they entered.  To them, shortly and succinctly, were explained the rules:  the system of “stubs” dealt out to newcomers as they gave their numbers and had lockers assigned them—­stubs to be religiously kept for the protection of property from false claimants; the working of a slot machine, in which must be slipped a card, and the moment of the morning and midday arrival thus recorded with ruthless exactitude (twenty-five cents docked off your pay if you were late), and other odds and ends of routine information, such as the hours at which lockers might or might not be opened without the presentation of special passes.

As Win fitted her key into the grated door which would in future pertain to No. 2884, into the locker room bounced the sardine.

“Hello, Lady Ermyntrude!” said she.  “I thought I’d pick you up some place.  Just a jiffy, and we can skip to the schoolroom together, if your ladyship pleases.”

“I am glad!” said Win, and as they went out side by side she ventured to add:  “Please do tell me why you call me Lady Ermyntrude.  I hope I’m not like anything so awful as that?”

“Oh, there’s always a Lady Ermyntrude in every English book you read, and you look as if you’d walked out of one.  I don’t know why, but you do.  I kind of like you, though.”

“So do I you,” said Win, but did not tell her that she was a sardine.  This might be a worse epithet in a foreign language even than Lady Ermyntrude.

“I’m for the toy department.  What are you?” rapped out the clear little voice that matched the clear little personality—­a personality which, at the top of its pompadour, did not reach the tip of Win’s ear.

“Mine is called a two-hour bargain sale—–­”

“Heaven help you!  Basement?”

“No, ground floor.”

“Thank your stars.  That’s a cut above.  Most amatoors start in the basement bargain sales.  If they live through the first day of that—­well! But you’re all right.  You’ve got the look of the ones who win.”

“That’s my name—­’Win’—­Winifred Child.”

“If you ain’t the Champion Giant Kid!  I’m Sadie Kirk.  Here’s the schoolroom.  When it ain’t that, it calls itself the rest room, you know.  I’m here only because there’s a little difference in Rolls’s check system from Bimgel’s, where I worked till the grippe laid me low and my place was filled.  I thought I’d try the Hands for a change, though they say it’s the limit and down the other side.  So me for the school!  We’ll sit together, and if I can help you I will.”

“You’re a dear,” whispered Win.