"My! Thanks for the bookays and choclits! Ta, ta! I'll wait for you to-night at the stage entrance with the other Johnnies."
She was off with the promptness of a soubrette after
an "exit speech," and Win was left to sip her stale coffee or spend what remained of her "off time" in the rest room next door.
Legally, Peter Rolls was supposed to give his hands an hour for the midday meal, but in the rush of the holiday season a way had been found for whipping the inconvenient little law devil round the post. Employees were asked to "lend" the management half of the legally allotted hour, the time to be repaid them later, so that after Christmas they might take once a week an hour and a half in the middle of the day instead of an hour. Those in the know had learned that, as on Christmas Eve most of the extra hands received with their pay envelope a week's notice to quit, they, at least, never got back the half-hours lent. As for the permanent hands, it would amount to a black mark secretly put against their names if they dared lay claim to the time owing. Win, however, was blissfully ignorant of this, and though she was tired, the arrangement seemed fair to her. As she got up from the table to spend fifteen minutes in the rest room she was almost happy in the thought of having the sardine for a neighbour.
Two of the girls who had come up from the bargain square with her, on the return of Miss Stein and their other seniors, looked after Win as she passed out of the restaurant.
"There goes Miss Thank-you-I-beg-your-pardon," said the young lady who had wondered if 2884 were a spy. "She's got a smile as if she was invited to tea with the Vanderbilts."
"By this time next week I bet she smiles the wrong
side of her mouth if she puts on any airs with Dora Stein."
"Hum-m, yeh. Unless what you think's so, and she's on the right side o' Father."
It was true, as the girls had warned the new hand, when six o'clock—closing time—came, you "couldn't chase the dames out." The salespeople began to put things away, and some even ventured to remind customers that the shop shut at six; but ladies who believed themselves possessed of the kindest hearts on earth pleaded that they must have one more thing, only just one, to complete their list for that day. Those who were too cross and tired to think about hearts or anything else except their own nerves, made no excuses at all, but demanded what they wanted or threatened a report to the floorwalker if a saleswoman were "disagreeable."