The next morning she was transferred to a bargain-counter for the day.
What the outcome might have been there is no imagining. What it was depended, at any rate in part, upon the fact that, on what proved to be her last day at the shop, she had come to work with a tired body and an aching head. She had sat up half the night in a long endeavor to persuade Carrie to leave the futile battle of the strikers and turn to other employment; and, when Carrie had rejected all proposals on the ground that, though the fight was lost, she knew no other sort of work, Katie had spent about all the remainder of the dark hours in an attempt to convince her roommate that the Irish girl's wages were enough to support both of them for some time to come. The result, so far as went her conduct at the store, was a temper ready to explode with the first spark, and that spark came when, in midafternoon, a nervous woman, who persisted in examining everything and buying nothing, interpreted Katie's lassitude as indifference and so reported it to the floor-walker.
Katie was sent for to come to Mr. Porter's office.
Mr. Porter looked up from the light at his desk, and then down again. He stroked a whisker.
"Sit down, Miss Flanagan," he said.
"Thanks," replied Katie, "I can take it just as well standin'."
"Take what?" asked Mr. Porter.
"Anythin' at all you have to say," said Katie.
Mr. Porter continued to look at his desk and, by the name of "Miss Flanagan," addressed it severely.
"Miss Flanagan," he said, "you have again been reported to me for discourtesy to a customer. The other case had not yet been adjusted. It might have been adjusted had not your cousin——"