“You’re another.  Go there yourself,” was the swift retort.

The rest room was really very nice, if there were ever a chance to rest in it—­which, Miss Kirk whispered, was not likely to be the case.  There were wall bookcases with glass doors, a few oak-framed engravings with a pale-green, “distempered” background, several chintz-covered sofas with cushions, and plenty of easy chairs.

On small tables lay very back numbers of illustrated papers and magazines.  The high windows had green curtains which softened their glare and (said Sadie) prevented dust from showing.  The brown-painted floor had decorative intervals of rugs, like flowery oases.  Altogether the room would have been an excellent “show place” if any influential millionairess began stirring up public interest in “conditions of shop-girl life.”

One end wall of the long, narrow room was almost entirely covered by an immense blackboard, supposed to represent a check book.  In front of this stood a pale young man with a timid air, who coughed and cleared his throat a good deal as he explained to a group of girls Peter Rolls’s specially simplified, modernly improved system of adding up the prices of purchased “goods” in the quickest and most scientific manner.  Win listened intently, easily catching the idea, but wondering if she should get “rattled” when she had to put it into practice in the coming “two-hour bargain sale.”  Miss Kirk, however, soon saw that the difference between this and other systems was not complicated enough to trouble her, and let her wits wander from one subject to another.

“That’s a salesman teaching,” she whispered up to her tall protegee.  “He’s new to the job, I guess, and scared of us guyls; but I bet he bullies men when he gets the chance!  He’ll tuyn out another Father.”

Win, not having forgotten her curiosity concerning the red-haired girl’s mysterious murmur to the superintendent, longed to question the sardine, who had the air of knowing everything she ought and ought not to know.  But the newcomer could not afford to lose a word that dropped from the nervous teacher’s lips.  “Do tell me about it later,” she pleaded.  “I must listen to this.”

“All right.  Are you lunching in or out?”

“Oh, in, I suppose.”

“So will I, then, though I hear it’s filthy and the grub vile.  We’ll try and make a date.”

Win dared not answer.  With difficulty she caught the last part of the lecture.  Then her fifteen minutes of schooling were over and the real battle of life as one of Peter Rolls’s hands was to begin.

No time for the luxury of luncheon appointments.  The two girls must meet or not, as luck ordained.  The toy department was on the sixth floor, so the parting came almost at once, and Win went down to meet her fate alone.