The interview with the foreman was of brief duration. He was a thick-set, pimply-faced person whom Dan called Mr. Bean. He swept an appraising eye over the applicant, submitted a few blunt questions to Dan in an undertone, ignored Mrs. Snawdor's voluble comments, and ended by telling Nance to report for work the following week.
As Mrs. Snawdor and Nance took their departure, the former, whose thoughts seldom traveled on a single track, said tentatively:
"Dan Lewis has got to be real nice lookin' sence you seen him, ain't he?"
"Nothin' to brag on," said Nance, still smarting at his indifference. But as she turned the corner of the building, she stole a last look through the window to where Dan was standing at his fiery post, his strong, serious face and broad, bare chest lighted up by the radiance from the glory-hole.
It was with little enthusiasm that Nance presented herself at the factory on Monday morning, ready to enlist in what Bishop Bland called "the noble service of industry." Her work was in the finishing room where a number of girls were crowded at machines and tables, filing, clipping, and packing bottles. Her task was to take the screw-neck bottles that came from the leer, and chip and file their jagged necks and shoulders until all the roughness was removed. It was dirty work, and dangerous for unskilled hands, and she found it difficult to learn.
"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.