"Say, kid," said the ugly, hollow-chested girl beside her, "if I'm goin' to be your learner, I want you to be more particular. Between you an' this here other girl, you're fixin' to put my good eye out."
Nance glanced up at the gaunt face with its empty eye socket and then looked quickly away.
"Say," said the other new girl, complainingly, "is it always hot like this in here? I'm most choking."
"We'll git the boss to put in a 'lectric fan fer you," suggested the hollow-chested one, whose name was Mag Gist.
Notwithstanding her distaste for the work, Nance threw herself into it with characteristic vehemence. Speed seemed to be the quality above all others that one must strive for, and speed she was determined to have, regardless of consequences.
"When you learn how to do this, what do you learn next?" she asked presently.
"There ain't no next. If you'd started as a wrapper, you might 'a' worked up a bit, but you never would 'a' got to be a chuck-grinder. I been at this bench four years an' if I don't lose my job, I'll be here four more."
"But if you get to be awful quick, you can make money, can't you?"
"You kin make enough to pay fer two meals a day if yer appetite ain't too good."
Nance's heart sank. It was a blow to find that Mag, who was the cleverest girl in the finishing room, had been filing bottle necks for four years. She stole a glance at her stooped shoulders and sallow skin and the hideous, empty socket of her left eye. What was the good of becoming expert if it only put one where Mag was?
By eleven o'clock there was a sharp pain between her shoulder-blades, and her feet ached so that she angrily kicked off first one shoe, then the other. This was the signal for a general laugh.
"They're kiddin' you fer sheddin' yer shoes," explained Mag, who had laughed louder than anybody. "Greenhorns always do it first thing. By the time you've stepped on a piece of glass onct or twict, you'll be glad enough to climb back into 'em."
After a while one of the girls started a song, and one by one the others joined in. There were numerous verses, and a plaintive refrain that referred to "the joy that ne'er would come again to you and I."
When no more verses could be thought of, there were stories and doubtful jokes which sent the girls into fits of wild laughter.