Every morning when she wakes the woman at the next desk rises before
her like a black specter. "Oh, I would not mind the work; I could
work all day happily and quietly and go home at night and rest; the
work would be a joy to me compared to this torture of having to live
all day next to that woman."
It is odd, too, and true, that if the woman at the next desk finds
that she is annoying our friend, unconsciously she seems to ferret
out her most sensitive places and rub them raw with her sharp,
discourteous words.
She seems to shirk her own work purposely and to arrange it so that
the woman next her must do the work in her place. Then, having done
all in her power to give the woman next her harder labor, she snaps
out a little scornful remark about the mistakes that have been made.
If she--the woman at the next desk--comes in in the morning feeling
tired and irritable herself, she vents her irritability on her
companion until she has worked it off and goes home at night feeling
much better herself, while her poor neighbor goes home tired out and
weak.
The woman at the next desk takes pains to let little disagreeable
hints drop about others--if not directly in their hearing at least
in ways which she knows may reach them.
She drops hint to others of what those in higher office have said or
appeared to think, which might frighten "others" quite out of their
wits for fear of their being discharged, and then, where should they
get their bread and butter?
All this and more that is frightful and disagreeable and mean may
the woman at the next desk do; or she may be just plain, every-day
_ugly.
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