The next morning when I applied at the hotel office for the wage due me, the paymaster gave me a receipt to sign. He had computed the amount at the rate of thirteen dollars a month.
“According to my contract I was to be paid at the rate of sixteen dollars a month,” I reminded him, returning the paper unsigned.
“You are not working in the side-hall,” he snapped back at me.
“I went where I was sent,” I told him. “The head waiter stationed me in the dining-room. Since the hotel required me to sign a contract I shall require the hotel to live up to that contract.”
Being accustomed to handling uneducated women this man fancied that all he had to do to intimidate me was to talk loud. When he paused in his shouting I repeated my first statement—the hotel must live up to its contract with me. After a second bout at loud talking the stenographer came to his assistance. She assured me “as a friend” that I had best take the amount offered me, as it was all that I would get. Besides I had no copy of the contract I claimed to have signed.
She gasped on being assured that I did have a second copy of the contract—the copy Mrs. Wilkins had sent for. Taking another tack, this girl reminded me that the difference between sixteen and thirteen was too small to dispute about. Whereupon I inquired why the hotel was unwilling to pay it.
Declaring that nothing could be done until my contract was found, both the stenographer and the paymaster went back to their work. After waiting thirty minutes by the clock I again asked for my wages. The paymaster informed me that my contract had not been found and that I would have to wait till they had time to look for it. At the end of the second thirty minutes, and seeing that no effort was being made to get the contract, I remarked that perhaps it might be just as well for me to call on the clerk of the district court while waiting.
Simple as that statement may seem, it had a surprising effect on the paymaster. Hurrying to the door of his enclosure he urged me to enter, sit down, and wait for the manager. The manager, he assured me, kept all contracts locked in a safe of which he alone knew the combination. On my persisting he followed me along the passageway, begging me “as a friend” to have a little patience. Another odd feature of the performance was that the housekeeper of the Belgrave, though she had held the position for more than ten years, could not direct me to the city hall.