After holiday time it was dreadfully difficult to get work, she not being the stuff of which stewardesses are made, and Sadie had more pluck than physical strength. Never had she entirely recovered "tone" after that attack of grippe which had lost her a good position, and the strenuous work during these weeks at Peter Rolls's had pulled her down. If she were to be "out of a job" things would be very bad for her; yet, as she moved up slowly, step by step, to the desk of destiny, she was reading a novel, calmly straining her eyes in the trying light. Over her shoulder Win could see the name of the book, "Leslie Norwood's Wife." Page after page Sadie turned, not with a nervous flutter, but with the regularity which meant concentration. She was bent on finding out what happened to Leslie Norwood's wife before the moment came to find out what was about to happen to Sadie Kirk.
She was near the end now. But was she near enough? Win began, in her nervous fatigue and anxiety on her own account, to wager with herself as to whether Sadie would finish that book before her turn came to take the fateful
envelope. Would she? Would she not? "I bet she will!" Win thought. "If she does, it'll mean luck for us both!"
And she did. Just as the girl ahead of Sadie clasped her pay envelope with a slightly trembling hand, Sadie read the last word on the last page, shut the volume, and tucked it under her arm. Then she took her envelope and gave place to Win.
They were among the few lucky ones out of the extra two thousand. Most of the others received with their pay little printed slips signed "Peter Rolls," announcing that it was "necessary to readjust our force down to the normal at this time." Those dismissed were politely informed that their record was on file. Should vacancies occur where they might be placed in future, they would be "notified to that effect." Meanwhile they were thanked for loyal service. And—that was the end of them as far as Peter Rolls was concerned.
He still had use, however, for Winifred Child, Sadie Kirk, Earl Usher, and two or three other "live" workers in Toyland. They compared notes joyously; but despite her sense of relief, Win's heart was heavy for those left out in the cold. The girls who were disappointed hurried away in silence, but many of the men whom No. 2884 had not thought of as friends, scarcely as acquaintances, came up to say good-bye. They held out their hands and remarked that they were "glad to have known her."
Some of her ways and some of her sayings were pretty good, they guessed, and they wouldn't forget her, although they didn't suppose that they'd ever meet again. Suddenly Win realized that they had been kind and pleasant, so far as it had lain in their power, and she, staying on,
would miss the faces that were gone. She choked a little over these men's appreciation of the difference between her "ways" and those of some other girls, and was half ashamed that it should surprise her.
"I expect I'll have to take to the sea again," sighed the ex-steward. "I wanted a little more time on land, but it ain't to be. Don't forget, you and your friend Sadie, that I can get you jobs on one of the big greyhounds."
"What a Christmas Eve!" Win said to herself aloud, as she almost fell into her room at eleven-thirty. "In half an hour more it will be Christmas, and I don't suppose there's one soul with a thought for me in all Europe or America!"