FIFTY-FIFTY It was late fall or early winter in the city of Cleveland.

An icy wind, steel-tipped, came in from the frozen shores of Lake Erie, piercing the streets, dark with soot and fog commingled.

It was evening, and the walks were covered with crowded and hurrying human beings seeking their own homes--men done with their office labors, young women from factories and shops.

These bent against the bitter wind, some apathetically, some stoutly, some with the vigor of youth, yet others with the slow gait of approaching age.
Mary Warren and her room-mate, Annie Squires, met at a certain street corner, as was their daily wont; the former coming from her place in one of the great department stores, the other from her work in a factory six blocks up the street.
"'Lo, Mollie," said Annie; and her friend smiled, as she always did at their chill corner rendezvous.

They found some sort of standing room together in a crowded car, swinging on the straps as it screeched its way around the curves, through the crowded portions of the city.