I did my own bookkeeping, and a thirteen-year-old girl,
American-born, school-bred, and bright, whose bewigged mother
was one of my finishers, took care of the shop while I was out,
helped me with my mail, and sewed on buttons
between-whiles--all for four dollars a week. Another finisher, a
young widow, saved me the expense of a figure woman. To which
should be added that I did business on a profit margin far beneath
the consideration of the well-known firms. All this, however, does
not include the most important of all the items that gave me an
advantage over the princes of the trade. That was cheap labor
Three of my men were excellent tailors. They could have easily
procured employment in some of the largest factories, where they
would have been paid at least twice as much as I paid them. They
were bewhiskered, elderly people, strictly orthodox and extremely
old-fashioned as to dress and habits. They felt perfectly at home in
my shop, and would rather work for me and be underpaid than be
employed in an up-to-date factory where a tailor was expected to
wear a starched collar and necktie and was made the butt of
ridicule if he covered his head every time he took a drink of water.
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