nother it
had always been poor Janet. And now, apparently, it was to be poor
George Riley as well.

CHAPTER XXIV

GEORGE TURNS

"Now!" Everything was on the table and there was no further excuse for
Mrs. O'Brien's not seating herself. She dropped into a chair and beamed
upon Rosie triumphantly. "And just to think, Rosie dear, that you don't
yet know about Ellen! Ellen's got a job! She's starting in on eight
dollars a week and she's to go to ten in a couple of weeks if she's
satisfactory. And you know yourself that twenty dollars is nothing for a
fine stenographer to be getting nowadays. And twenty a week means eighty
a month and eighty a month means close on to a thousand a year! Now I do
say that a thousand a year is a pretty big lump of money for a girl like
Ellen to be making!"

Mrs. O'Brien's enthusiasm was genuine but scarcely infectious. Terence
jerked his head toward Rosie with a dry aside: "She started work
yesterday on a week's trial."

Mrs. O'Brien looked at her son reprovingly. "Why, Terry lad, how you
talk! On trial, indeed! As if a trial ain't a sure thing with a girl
that's got the fine looks and the fine education that Ellen's got!"

"Fine education--rats! I bet she knows as much about stenography as a
bunny!"

His mother gazed on him offended and hurt. "Since you're such a wise
young man, Mister Terence O'Brien, perhaps you'll be telling us how much
you know about it, yourself."

Terry's answer was prompt: "Not a blamed thing! But I tell you what I do
know: I know Ellen, and you can take it from me she's a frost."

Rosie sighed plaintively. "But where does Jarge come in? What's the
matter with Jarge."

Terence answered her shortly: "Oh, nuthin'. Ellen only played him one of
her little tricks last week and he's mad."

"And I must say," Mrs. O'Brien supplemented, "Jarge does surprise me the
way he keeps it up. After all, Ellen's only a young girl and he ought to
remember that every young girl makes a mistake now and then."

"What mistake did she make this time?" Rosie spoke as quietly as she
could.

"It's a long story," her mother said. "Since you've been gone she met a
fella named Finn, Larry Finn, and we all thought him very nice, he was
that polite with his hair always brushed and shiny and smooth. He had a
good job downtown----"

"You know his kind, Rosie," Terry interposed; "a five dollar a week
book-keep--silk socks but no undershirt. Oh, he was a great sport! Ellen
was cr