Rosie's heart sank. Was this comfortable income of twenty cents a week now, at the last moment, to be snatched from her?
"Aw now, Mama," she began; "it's only right around here where every one knows me, honest it is! This is the end of Terry's route and he gets here so late that if I don't help him he'll lose his customers, won't you, Terry?"
Rosie appealed to Terence, but Terence was busy scowling at his older sister. "Say, Ellen O'Brien, what do you think you are? You mind your own business or I'll give that pompadour of yours a frizzle!"
Ellen concentrated on her mother: "I don't care, Ma! You just mustn't let her! How do you think I'd feel going into a swell office some day, hunting a job, and have the man say, no, he didn't want any common newsgirls around!"
For a moment every one was silent, overcome by the splendour of that imagined office. Then Terence broke into a jeer:
"Aw, forget it! If Rosie was to make her living selling papers, who'd know about it downtown? And if some one from downtown did see her, how would they know she was your sister? Say, Sis, it's time for you to go shine your nails!"
"Now, Ma, just listen to that! I wish you'd make Terry stop always making fun of me! Haven't I got to keep my hands nice if ever I'm going to be a stenog?"
Mrs. O'Brien tried hard to restore a general peace: "Terry lad, you mustn't be talkin' that way to your sister. P'rhaps what Ellen says is right. I dunno. We'll see what himself says when he comes in."
The young O'Briens were used to having their mother refer to their father as one to decide all sorts of vexed questions. When he was out of the house he seemed the person to appeal to. When, however, Jamie O'Brien was at home, no one ever heeded him in the least. He would come in tired and silent from his run and, after sitting about in shirtsleeves and socks long enough to smoke a pipe, would slip quietly off to bed. So no one was deceived by Mrs. O'Brien's manœuver of begging them to await their father's judgment in the matter. Rosie and Terence would have been willing to let it mark the close of the discussion, but not Ellen.
"I tell you, Ma," she insisted, "it's a perfect disgrace if you don't stop it right now!"