"Still, it is better than losing your place because your work was so poor you couldn't hold the job," smiled the girl.
"I can't see it that way. This is just low down and unfair."
"But I don't mind that. I know I wasn't to blame."
"You bet you weren't. I wish I had Corcoran here. I'd shake the daylights out of him."
"Whose daylights are going to be shaken out now?" inquired a laughing voice, and the brother and sister turned to see Carl McGregor beside them.
"Old Corcoran up at the works," snarled Hal. "He's given Louise the sack!"
Carl did not speak. He knew only too well how genuine was this disaster. In the sympathetic silence that followed the three young persons seemed to draw closer together.
"It isn't as if Loulie had done anything to deserve such a slam," Hal suddenly declared. "He's just taking out his spite on me and he's chosen this means of doing it. To light on a woman! I'd a hundred times rather he'd shipped me. But it's like him."
Moodily the three walked on.
"Of course, I must get some other place right away," Louise said presently, as if thinking aloud. "I don't know just what. I've never worked anywhere but in the mills and I have no other trade. To be turned away from Davis and Coulter won't be much of a recommendation for me either, I'm afraid."