The Roanoke times. [volume] (Roanoke, Va.) 1890-1895, 1893-05-19
TOLL OF FINGER TIPS.
Nym Crlnlx1e Describes g New
Kind of Matrimonial Agency.
How Large TypewritIng establishments
Was Managcd-The Satisfaction of
Talking to a Woman who
Can't Talk Back.
IcopYRlGnT. 1891

Since tho well-dreSSed secretary,
with her hair la Gree, has become a
part of the furniture of every business
Office, the typewriter has developed
into speculative maiden.
Some of them, it is true, still sing the
song of the shirt in tailor-madc suits
at three cents folio, but they are dam
sells demurc, with one eye Oh other
chnnces. The real typewriter of the
period is an operator, and bulls the
market.
you suppose she ticktacks in cor
ner all day, eats her lunch in the cor
ridor and 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
eye on the situation it began to de-
velop possibilities. She worked her
finger tips just two months. Then she
lind u scheme.
One thing was certain. There was
no wealth in one machine. Another
thing was cvidcnt-thc machine was
only one factor in tho business-rirl
was another.
Genius seized tho idea. She rented
swell suite in swell downtown
building, furnished it on installments
Had private Office, got together a
dozen pretty girls. put up sign and
waited
The aroma of it permeated the whole
building. For week loneliness in all
degrees of witchery went up and down
stairs and drifted into one door. Young
lawyers, patent agents, trade paper
editors ipS1,ra man valiant ,o,-.:
sioners, matrimonial brokers', stock lob
oers, syndicatcs and real estate agents
shifted new atmosphere. A super,
stitious notion spread insensibly that
behind that door there must be a kind
or reservoir of girl. Bubbling bursts of
soprano came out at times when the
door was opened and pealed curiously
through the grim corridors and tapped
at 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
hurrying into that safe retreat
The boss typewriter watched the
progress of events through one clear
little pane in the cathedral door of her
private office. She was complaccnt.
patient and self-assured She noted
the change that was silently working.
Nobody cursed loudly on that floor
now, and some Of the young lawyers
got new nccllties. She noticed, too.
that some of them began to go out
about the time the girls went to lunch,
and they slicked up very obviously. So
she smiled. Shrewd woman, that. She
paid her girls small salary while they
were doing nothing. 1t was an invest
mcnt.
But let us do justice to the feminine
nina. When work began TO uvu,o in
she paid them three cents 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
inkstands dried up and blotters ceased
from troubling.
Did you ever try debating to girl in
a spring dress? What profound
sense of luxury to see the white fingers
galloping over the lscys-doing all the
walking, so to speak, while you laid
back and just breathed easily. Epis-
lotary drudgery is thus converted into
a voluptuous panorama. Then the
ethical basis of it, as Mr. 30 Flower
would say. If You ever read over the
dictated letters long aftcrward you
must have been struck with their SUI
periority, in moral sense, to Your
written letters. No damns in them.
No side illusions; no coarseness. They
got to be quite Chesterfieldian, now,
didn't they? And, then, they were so
much more deliberate and covered the
ground so much more exhaustively.
You detected sooner or later that die
tating cured the infamous American
habit OF hurry and impatience. Some
times, it is true, when you were max
ing volume out of brief business
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