The work in Front Office was entirely with bills. These bills were
of the sales made in the house itself the day before, and those sent
by mail from the traveling salesmen, and were accompanied by
duplicate bills, on thin yellow sheets. It was Mrs. Valencia's work,
the easiest in the office, to compare originals and duplicates, and
supply to the latter any item that was missing. Hundreds of the
bills were made out for only one or two items, many were but one
page in length, and there were several scores of longer ones every
day, raging from two to twenty pages.

The original bills went downstairs again immediately, and Miss
Thornton, taking the duplicates one by one from Mrs. Valencia,
marked the cost price of every article in the margin beyond the
selling price. Thorny, after twelve years' experience, could jot
down costs, percentages and discounts at an incredible speed. Drugs,
patent medicines, surgical goods and toilet articles she could price
as fast as she could read them, and, even while her right hand
scribbled busily, her left hand turned the pages of her cost catalog
automatically, when her trained eye discovered, half-way down the
page, some item of which she was not quite sure. Susan never tired
of admiring the swiftness with which hand, eye and brain worked
together. Thorny would stop in her mad flight, ponder an item with
absent eyes fixed on space, suddenly recall the price, affix the
discounts, and be ready for the next item. Susan had the natural
admiration of an imaginative mind for power, and the fact that Miss
Thornton was by far the cleverest woman in the office was one reason
why Susan loved her best.

Miss Thornton whisked her finished duplicates, in a growing pile, to
the left-hand side of Miss Munay's desk. Her neighbor also did