Yes, she walks, whether sick or
well. Anyhow, you are generally so tired, it don't make much
difference which you are."
Gilder was fuming under these strictures, which seemed to him
altogether baseless attacks on himself. His exasperation steadily
waxed against the girl, a convicted felon, who thus had the
audacity to beard him.
"What has all this to do with the question of theft in the
store?" he rumbled, huffily. "That was the excuse for your
coming here. And, instead of telling me something, you rant
about gas-stoves and carfare."
The inexorable voice went on in its monotone, as if he had not
spoken.
"And, when you are really sick, and have to stop work, what are
you going to do then? Do you know, Mr. Gilder, that the first
time a straight girl steals, it's often because she had to have a
doctor--or some luxury like that? And some of them do worse than
steal. Yes, they do--girls that started straight, and wanted to
stay that way. But, of course, some of them get so tired of the
whole grind that--that----"
The man who was the employer of hundreds concerning whom these
grim truths were uttered, stirred uneasily in his chair, and
there came a touch of color into the healthy brown of his cheeks
as he spoke his protest.
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