"What do they think I am running?" demanded Mr. Clarke, angrily, "a health resort?"
"No, sir," said Dan, "a death trap."
Mr. Clarke set his jaw and glared at Dan, but he said nothing. The doctor's recent verdict on the death of a certain one-eyed girl, named Mag Gist, may have had something to do with his silence.
"How many girls are in that room now?" he asked after a long pause.
Dan gave the number, together with several other disturbing facts concerning the sanitary arrangements.
"Well, what's to be done?" demanded Mr. Clarke, fiercely. "We can't get out the work with fewer girls, and there is no way of enlarging that room."
"Yes, sir, there is," said Dan. "Would you mind me showing you a way?"
"Since you are so full of advice, go ahead."
With crude, but sure, pencil strokes, Dan got his ideas on paper. He had done it so often for his own satisfaction that he could have made them with his eyes shut. Ever since those early days when he had seen that room through Nance Molloy's eyes, he had persisted in his efforts to better it.
Mr. Clarke, with his fingers thrust through his scanty hair, watched him scornfully.