This task consisted of ironing all the unstarched portions of the shirts.
It was exhausting work, carried on, hour after hour, at top speed.

Out on the broad verandas of the hotel, men and women, in cool white, sipped iced drinks and kept their circulation down.

But in the laundry the air was sizzling.

The huge stove roared red hot and white hot, while the irons, moving over the damp cloth, sent up clouds of steam.

The heat of these irons was different from that used by housewives.