The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1893-05-07
Hs'ss Sw> &
WNsl}ys.
TOLL OF FINGER TIPS.
Nym Crinzle Describes a New
Kind of Matrimonial Agency.
Hew large Typewriting Establishment
Was Managed-The Satisfaction OF
Talking to Woman who
Can't Talk Back.
COPYRIGHT. 1879. !

with her hair la Gree, has become a
mart of the furniture of every business
Office, the typewriter has developed
into a speculative maiden.
Some of them, il is true. still sing the
song of the shirt in tailor-nadc suits
st three cents a folio but they are dam
.els demure. with one eye on other
chances. The real typewriter Of the
pericd is an operator. and bulls the
market
II Won suppose she ticktacks in cor
ner all day. eats her lunch in the cor
ridor ard plods YEARLY home at five
o'clock with red eyes and sore finger
TIPS. YOU don't know anything about
operating.
No. sir. When she got her business
eve on the situation it began to de-
rclop possibilities. She worked her
finger tips Just two months. Then she
had a scheme.
One thing was certain. There was
so wealth in one machine. Another
.lling was evidcnt-the machine was
only one factor in the business-girl
was another.
Genius seized the idea. She rented
q swell suite in swell downtown
building. furnished Il on installments.
Had private Office, got together
dozen pretty girls, put up sign and
waited.
The aroma of it permoated The whole
building For week loneliness in all
degrees Of witchery went up and down
stairs and drifteG into one door. Young
lawyers, patent agents, trade paper
editors, Insurance men, patent commas
sioners. matrimonial brokers. stock job
beers. svndicates and real estate agents
shifted a new atmosphere. a super
stitiors notion spread insensibly that
behind that door there must be kind
ofreservoir OF girl. Bubbling bursts of
soprano came out at times when the
door was opened and pealed cIriously
through the grim corridors and tapped
1T the other GLASS doors Of the sober
Offices and then stopped suddenly.
Black stockings fitted and white
SKIRTS flashed at times on the stairways,
as if they were frightened and were
hurrving into that safe retreat.
The boss typewriter watched the
progress of events through one clear
little pane in the cathedral door Of her
private ONCE. She was complacont,
Dstient and self-assUred. She noted
the change that was silently working.
Nobody cursed loudly on that floor
now, and some of the young lawyers
pot new necI1ties. She noticed, too,
that some of them began 70 go out
about the time the girls went to lunch,
and they slicised up very obviously. So
she smiled. Shrewd woman, that. She
paid her girls small salary while they
were doing nothing. 1t was an invest
ment.
But let us do justice to the feminine
mind. When work began to come in
she paid them three ce1ts d folio.
And charged five! Selah,
This IS business And she only took
her gloves off to sign receipts
Did it come in?
Well. she put up an additional sign
when the time was ripe: Personal die
tation, with choice of secretary, one
cent folio extra"
Did it come in? Why, there grew up
such an absurd mania for debating
everything in that building that the
inl<stands dried up and blotters ceased
from troubling.
Did you ever try debating to a girl in
spring dress? What a profound
sense of luxury to sec the white fingers
galloping over the keys-doing all the
walking, SO to speak, while YOU laid
hack and just breathed easily. Epis-
lotary drudgsry is thus converted into
voluptuous panorama. Then the
ethical basis Of il, as Mr.. DO Flower
would say. It you ever read over the
dictated letters long afterward you
must have been struck with their SUI
periority. IN a moral sense, TO your
written letters. No damns IN them.
No side illusions; no coarseness. They
got TO he quite Chestertieldian, now,
didn't they? And, then. they were so
much more deliberate and covered the
ground SO Inuch more eXhaustively.
You detected sooner or later that die
Eating cured the infamous American
habit Of hurry and Impotence. Some
times, it is true, when you were max
iYg volume out of q brief business
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