"Scorch that an' it's twenty dollars out of your wages." So Martin did not scorch that, and eased down on his muscular tension, though nervous tension rose higher than ever, and he listened sympathetically to the other's blasphemies as he toiled and suffered over the beautiful things that women wear when they do not have to do their own laundrying.

"Fancy starch" was Martin's nightmare, and it was Joe's, too.

It was "fancy starch" that robbed them of their hard-won minutes.
They toiled at it all day.

At seven in the evening they broke off to run the hotel linen through the mangle.

At ten o'clock, while the hotel guests slept, the two laundrymen sweated on at "fancy starch" till midnight, till one, till two.