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The Iron Woman by Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
page 111 of 577 (19%)
woman; and in his panic of apprehension, poor little Elizabeth's
defense of Blair seemed to be of the same nature. He was so
worried over it that he was moved to do a very unwise thing. He
would, he said to himself, put Mrs. Maitland on her guard about
this nonsense between the two children.

The next morning when he went into her office at the Works, he
found the place humming with business. As he entered he met a
foreman, just taking his departure with, so to speak, his tail
between his legs. The man was scarlet to his forehead under the
lash of his employer's tongue. It had been administered in the
inner room; but the door was open into the large office, and as
Mrs. Maitland had not seen fit to modulate her voice, the clerks
and some messenger-boys and a couple of traveling-men had had the
benefit of it. Ferguson, reporting at that open door, was bidden
curtly to come in and sit down. "I'll see you presently," she
said, and burst out into the large office. Instantly the roomful
of people, lounging about waiting their turn, came to attention.
She rushed in among them like a gale, whirling away the straws
and chaff before her, and leaving only the things that were worth
while. She snapped a yellow envelope from a boy's hand, and even
while she was ripping it open with a big forefinger, she was
reading the card of an astonished traveling-man: "No, sir; no,
sir; your bid was one-half of one per cent, over Heintz. Your
people been customers so long that they thought that I--? I never
mix business and friendship!" She stood still long enough to run
her eye over the drawing of a patent, and toss it back to the
would-be inventor. "No, I don't care to take it up with you.
Cast it for you? Certainly. I'll cast anything for anybody"; and
the man found his blueprint in his hand before he could begin his
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