"You ought to know," said Mag, drily.
The talk ran largely to food and clothes, and Nance listened with growing dismay. It seemed that most of the girls lived in rooming houses and took their meals out.
"Wisht I had a Hamberger," said Mag. "I ain't had a bite of meat fer a month. I always buy my shoes with meat money."
"I git my hats with breakfasts," said another girl. "Fourteen breakfasts makes a dollar-forty. I kin buy a hat fer a dollar-forty-nine that's swell enough fer anybody."
"I gotta have my breakfast," said Mag. "Four cups of coffee ain't nothin' to me."
Gert got up and stretched herself impatiently.
"I'm sick an' tired of hearin' you all talk about eatin'. Mag's idea of Heaven is a place where you spend ten hours makin' money an' two eatin' it up. Some of us ain't built like that. We got to have some fun as we go along, an' we're goin' to git it, you bet your sweet life, one way or the other."
Soon after work was resumed, word was passed around that a big order had come in, and nobody was to quit work until it was made up. A ripple of sullen comment followed this announcement, but the girls bent to their tasks with feverish energy.
At two o'clock the other new girl standing next to Nance grew faint, and had to be stretched on the floor in the midst of the broken glass.
"She's a softie!" whispered Mag to Nance. "This ain't nothin' to what it is in hot weather."