Perth Amboy evening news., 1903-10-31
A HIS VANITY.
Something That Makes an Old TOgS
swell Up auN Fly on Ills
Trolley.

I'm experiencing that swelled and
all-het-up feeling these days." re-
marked an old-time government clerk
as he rode down to his Office the other
morning, relates the Washington Star.
81 find it kind o. hard to get in and out
OF doors that fitted my proportions
easily enough only a short time ago,
and now l know, in a sort of way, how
J. Pierpont Morgan feels when he puts
through some colossal deal.
"Whyf Well, theyt gave me a stenog-
rapher last week, down at the office.
I've been pcgging away at the same
old desk for about thirty years now;
but. somehow or another, I can't help
feeling that I've had q big boost along,
now that I've got 8 stenogTapher. I'm
bound to admit that I've got the big
head a heap over having that short
hand man all to myself. Feel a hull
lot more chesty than I've ever felt
since l first entered the government
service, and l guess I'm strutting about
the halls of the old building these days
in a way that makes tho messengers
grin when my backs turned.
But l just nachully can't help it
this thing of having Il stenographer to
boss around has got me going. Ny
wife, with her eagle eye, has already
observed the habit I've developed Of
keeping my shoulders well thrown
back since they gave me the stenng-
rapher, and I guess the fact that I've
got a s~tenographer tickles the good old
girl just as much as II does me-only
she says now, with the voman's fatu-
ous belief IN the ability of her hu5-
band. no matter how much Of = dummy
he may be, that I ought 10 have had a
stenographer years and years ago.
Anyhow. burned If | don't actually be-
lieve that that s~ton0grapher business
has pleased me moro than q 5000 hist
in my pey would have done-it gives
me that sense of Importance, you know
something that I've never expert
enced before In all of the long years
since ! entered the employ Of Uncle
Sam-makes me feel like somebody, in
stead Of just a nobody. I could just
feel myself swelling up when they first
sent that young shorthand fellow to
me. OF course, I tried to get away
with the bluff with him hat I'd been
nsed to debating to stenographers all
my life, but he's a pretty shrewd
y%oungster. that stenographer of mine,
md I'm afraid that he was next to the
fact that debating was a dead new
yl.ne 10 me. althOuph he didn't LOT m
these Kids are pretty diplomatic in
their dealings with us old dodgers now
adays. He could see how mucn good
1t was doing me To touch the button
on the side of my desk that summons
him. and to clear my throat in q
heavy, pondorous sort of way, and to
begin debating Endorsements to him.
and he was willing to let NE go on
imagining from the first that I was
yUrHU rtnktls.
Its not so much the help that the
young pot-hook-wrlting fellow gives
me In my work, the chance that he
gives mo to rest my eyes. the burden
that he's taken off my shoulders. T.
was used to the work and l didn't mind
1t. But, dear me SUI, and. l!kouize.
gosh all hemlock, It's the rcaI-thing
feeling OF having a stenogrnpher ali to
himself that sort o. throws an old fogy
like me off his trolley, and il I don't
Just puff up and dust before the leaves
begin to swirl in the ditches, why, it'll
be q caution, thet's ALL"