The
air is something terrible."
"What do they think I am running?" demanded Mr. Clarke, angrily, "a
health resort?"
"No, sir," said Dan, "a death trap."
Mr. Clarke set his jaw and glared at Dan, but he said nothing. The
doctor's recent verdict on the death of a certain one-eyed girl, named
Mag Gist, may have had something to do with his silence.
"How many girls are in that room now?" he asked after a long pause.
Dan gave the number, together with several other disturbing facts
concerning the sanitary arrangements.
"Well, what's to be done?" demanded Mr. Clarke, fiercely. "We can't
get out the work with fewer girls, and there is no way of enlarging
that room."
"Yes, sir, there is," said Dan. "Would you mind me showing you a way?"
"Since you are so full of advice, go ahead."
With crude, but sure, pencil strokes, Dan got his ideas on paper. He had
done it so often for his own satisfaction that he could have made them
with his eyes shut. Ever since those early days when he had seen that
room through Nance Molloy's eyes, he had persisted in his efforts to
better it.
Mr. Clarke, with his fingers thrust through his scanty hair, watched him
scornfully.
"Absolutely impractical," he declared. "The only feasible plan would be
to take out the north partition and build an extension like this."
"That couldn't be done," said Dan, "on account of the projection."
Whereupon, such is the power of opposition, Mr. Clarke set himself to
prove that it could.
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