"But while you do work you might do it faithfully, not spend time for which you are paid in idleness, and crowd in rags with the buttons all on, which will be sure to spoil the machinery when they come to be ground."
"Bah! what difference does it make? I'm paid for my time. Provided I stay here all day, they haven't a right to claim anything more."
"But, Bertie, they have. Don't you remember the text which is painted on the wall at the foot of the corridor?
"'Not slothful in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.'"
"It seems to me just like stealing to waste time that we're paid for, or not to do work entrusted to us just as well as we possibly can."
"Oh, well, you're one of the saints, you know. If it's saintship to be rude and call other people thieves I'm glad I'm a sinner, that's all. I guess we'll catch the saint in a slip before long, don't you, girls?" said she, appealing to several other idlers who naturally congregated around a bird of the same feather as themselves.
Bertie and Katie did not walk home together any more. The former, never having finished her work, was always obliged to remain in the mill till the closing-bell rang, while the former went home, as we have seen, at four o'clock, and at noon she was generally met by her brothers.
"Eric," she said on the day of the above conversation, "do you think it's right to idle and talk instead of doing your work?"
"We can't in the bindery; the machine won't let us. Everything would go to thunder if we looked off."
"But suppose you could, and nobody knew anything about it?"