"No. I'm just dying here."
"Dying!" David exclaimed in surprise. "Why, you don't look like a dying person."
"Maybe I don't, but I am. I'm just staying here because I have to. My mother's a widow, and I want to earn some money to help her, and as this was the only place I could get I had to take it."
"So you do not like it, then?"
"Who would like any place where there is such a brute as Jim Goban?
My, I'm sorry for you. To think of any man getting into his clutches."
"But surely I won't be any worse off than you are."
"I'm not so sure about that. You see, I'm about boss here, and do and say just what I like."
"How's that?"
"Well, I'm the only person Jim can get to work here. All the girls for miles around know what kind of a creature he is, and they wouldn't come for any amount of money. They're scared to death of him. But I'm not, and I tell him right to his face what I think of him, and the way he treats his poor wife. He would like to horsewhip me, but he knows that if I leave no one else would come in my place. But I'm glad now that I am here so I can look after you."
"Look after me!"