Page:The Fruit of the Tree (Wharton 1907).djvu/23

Rh ; but the hands say that it was caused by the fact of the cards being too near together, and that just such an accident was bound to happen sooner or later.”

Miss Brent drew an eager breath. “And what do you say?”

“That they’re right: the carding—room is shamefully overcrowded. Dillon hasn’t been in it long—he worked his way up at the mills from being a bobbin=boy—and he hadn’t yet learned how cautious a man must be in there. The cards are so close to each other that even the old hands run narrow risks, and it takes the cleverest operative some time to learn that he must calculate every movement to a fraction of an inch.”

“But why do they crowd the rooms in that way?”

“To get the maximum of proﬁt out of the minimum of ﬂoor-space. It costs more to increase the ﬂoor-space than to maim an operative now and then.”

“I see. Go on,” she murmured.

“That’s the first point; here is the second. Dr. Disbrow told Truscomb this morning that Dillon’s hand would certainly be saved, and that he might get back to work in a couple of months if the company would present him with an artiﬁcial ﬁnger or two.”

Miss Brent faced him with a ﬂush of indignation. “Mr. Amherst—who gave you this version of Dr. Disbrow’s report?”

“The manager himself.” [ 11 ]