Clang! sounded a big gong through the room. Clang! Clang!
"Fire drill!" called the efficient forewoman, and afterward Ruth and Alice felt what a blessing it was she kept her wits about her. "Fire drill! Form in line and march to the fire escapes!"
"Oh! Oh, I know I'm going to faint!" cried Miss Pennington. "This is a regular fire trap! All shirt waist factories are. I am going to faint!"
"Miss Dixon, just—slap her!" called Alice.
"Oh, Alice!" remonstrated Ruth, looking about with frightened eyes.
"It's the only way to bring her to her senses!" retorted the younger girl. And to the eternal credit of Miss Dixon be it said that she did slap her friend Miss Pennington, and she slapped her with sufficient energy to prevent the fainting fit, even as a sip of aromatic spirits of ammonia might have done.
"Fire drill! Form lines! March!" again called the forewoman, with the coolness a veteran fireman might have envied.
"Can't we get our wraps?" asked one of the workers.
"No! You can come back for them," was the answer.
"But it—it's a real fire!" someone cried. "Our things will be burned up!"