“Then,” cried Dennis, “you mean that I must leave at once?”
“That’s about th’ size of it.”
“Why,” exclaimed Dennis, indignant at this injustice, “I tried to be fair with you, and you haven’t——”
“Here,” interrupted the foreman, in evident haste to conclude a disagreeable interview; “there’s no use talking about it, it’s got to be done”; and turning to a drawer in the desk he extracted Monday’s pay and placed it in the young man’s hand.
At that moment a burly porter filled up the doorway.
“What is it?” asked the foreman, glad of the interruption, as he hastened, with unnecessary and suspicious promptness, to attend to the wants of the intruder.
In a little while Dennis realized that he waited in vain for the return of the foreman, and that, in so far as he was concerned, he was out of a job.
Dennis had been, at various times in his life, subjected to some rugged experiences, but could not recall any treatment quite so heartless as this.
It upset all his calculations.
He must exist somehow between the unhappy realities of the present and the blissful expectations of the approaching Monday.