The Trimmed Lamp | Page 4

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THE TRIMMED LAMP
AND OTHER STORIES OF
THE FOUR MILLION
By
O HENRY

CONTENTS

THE TRIMMED LAMP A MADISON SQUARE ARABIAN NIGHT
THE RUBAIYAT OF A SCOTCH HIGHBALL THE PENDULUM
TWO THANKSGIVING DAY GENTLEMEN THE ASSESSOR OF
SUCCESS THE BUYER FROM CACTUS CITY THE BADGE OF
POLICEMAN O'ROON BRICKDUST ROW THE MAKING OF A
NEW YORKER VANITY AND SOME SABLES THE SOCIAL
TRIANGLE THE PURPLE DRESS THE FOREIGN POLICY OF
COMPANY 99 THE LOST BLEND A HARLEM TRAGEDY "THE
GUILTY PARTY"--AN EAST SIDE TRAGEDY ACCORDING TO
THEIR LIGHTS A MIDSUMMER KNIGHT'S DREAM THE LAST
LEAF THE COUNT AND THE WEDDING GUEST THE COUNTRY
OF ELUSION THE FERRY OF UNFULFILMENT THE TALE OF A
TAINTED TENNER ELSIE IN NEW YORK

THE TRIMMED LAMP
Of course there are two sides to the question. Let us look at the other.
We often hear "shop-girls" spoken of. No such persons exist. There are
girls who work in shops. They make their living that way. But why turn
their occupation into an adjective? Let us be fair. We do not refer to the
girls who live on Fifth Avenue as "marriage- girls."
Lou and Nancy were chums. They came to the big city to find work
because there was not enough to eat at their homes to go around. Nancy
was nineteen; Lou was twenty. Both were pretty, active, country girls
who had no ambition to go on the stage.
The little cherub that sits up aloft guided them to a cheap and
respectable boarding-house. Both found positions and became wage-
earners. They remained chums. It is at the end of six months that I
would beg you to step forward and be introduced to them. Meddlesome
Reader: My Lady friends, Miss Nancy and Miss Lou. While you are
shaking hands please take notice--cautiously--of their attire. Yes,
cautiously; for they are as quick to resent a stare as a lady in a box at
the horse show is.

Lou is a piece-work ironer in a hand laundry. She is clothed in a
badly-fitting purple dress, and her hat plume is four inches too long;
but her ermine muff and scarf cost $25, and its fellow beasts will be
ticketed in the windows at $7.98 before the season is over. Her cheeks
are pink, and her light blue eyes bright. Contentment radiates from her.
Nancy you would call a shop-girl because you have the habit. There is
no type; but a perverse generation is always seeking a type; so this is
what the type should be. She has the high-ratted pompadour, and the
exaggerated straight-front. Her skirt is shoddy, but has the correct flare.
No furs protect her against the bitter spring air, but she wears her short
broadcloth jacket as jauntily as though it were Persian lamb! On her
face and in her eyes, remorseless type- seeker, is the typical shop-girl
expression. It is a look of silent but contemptuous revolt against
cheated womanhood; of sad prophecy of the vengeance to come. When
she laughs her loudest the look is still there. The same look can be seen
in the eyes of Russian peasants; and those of us left will see it some day
on Gabriel's face when he comes to blow us up. It is a look that should
wither and abash man; but he has been known to smirk at it and offer
flowers--with a string tied to them.
Now lift your hat and come away, while you receive Lou's cheery "See
you again," and the sardonic, sweet smile of Nancy that seems,
somehow, to miss you and go fluttering like a white moth up over the
housetops to the stars.
The two waited on the corner for Dan. Dan was Lou's steady company.
Faithful? Well, he was on hand when Mary would have had to hire a
dozen subpoena servers to find her lamb.
"Ain't you cold, Nance?" said Lou. "Say, what a chump you are for
working in that old store for $8. a week! I made $l8.50 last week. Of
course ironing ain't as swell work as selling lace behind a counter, but it
pays. None of us ironers make less than $10. And I don't know that it's
any less respectful work, either."
"You can have it,"