Swiftly my hands were changing to a faint likeness of my companion's.
"Don't tell him," she said, "that I told you that. He'll be mad; he'll think I am discouraging you. But you'll lose your forefinger nail, all right!" Then she gave a little laugh as she turned her boot around to polish it.
"Once I tried to clean my hands up. Lord! it's no good! I scrub 'em with a scrubbin'-brush on Sundays."
"How long have you been at this job?"
"Ten months."
They called her "Bobby"; the men from their machines nodded to her now and then, bantering her across the noise of their wheels. She was ignorant of it, too stupid to know whether life took her in sport or in earnest! The men themselves worked in their flannel shirts. Not far from us was a wretchedly ill-looking individual, the very shadow of manhood. I observed that once he cast toward us a look of interest. Under my feet was a raised platform on which I stood, bending to my work. During the
morning the consumptive man strolled over and whispered something to "Bobby." He made her dullness understand. When he had gone back to his job she said to me:
"Say, w'y don't yer push that platform away and stand down on the floor? You're too tall to need that. It makes yer bend."
"Did that man come over to tell you this?"
"Yes. He said it made you tired."