The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-05-05


 bright young beginner preferred; state
 salary desired; easy hours. Address
 Commercial.
 Such was my appeal and the next day when I applied to the advertising office to see if any bright young beginner wished easy hours, the clerk at the desk scowled at me as though he had grudge against me and didn't like me nohow, took d double handful of letters from a pigeonhole marked Con- scowled at me again. wet his thumb and began to run the letters over. Occasionally he tossed letter to one side, and after run ming through about 300 letters he had done the tossing act three times.
 Surely" I said to myself-"surely one of the three will be bright young be- ginler, and I held out my hand. To my astonishment the clerk put the three back into the pigeonhole Com" lifted the 300 to the counter in front of me, pushed them forward and turned his bacl, to me with a motion that said "Goodhy good riddance" l picked up my mail with importance, holding 1t in front of me grasped between my hands as a man grasps an accordion, and went back to my office,
 low, the first bright. young beginner whom I asked to call for a personal in terview was a pa.e young damsel whose pallor I attributed at the time to over study of typewriting and shorthand writing; also the sample letter which she wrote had rather too many errors, b. she told me, by way of apology, that th-a was due entirely to nervousness and an unfamiliar machine and inasnuch as shs seemed most anxious to please, and as l thought that the easy hours would soon reduce her pallor and cure her ner- vousness. while time of course, would correct her unfamiliarity with the ma che, I engaged her Gas the saying is) on the spot
 hated to lose her so sobn, but after a weeks acquaintance with her new sur roundings she. arose to and maintained u ii high pitch of proficiency:
 Dear Sres-ln owledgement your value fever sixty secondss''-
 Sixty secondss.' I might explain, was bright young beginner for '16th instant, !" and in view of the fact that she had a way OF going pallidly back to her ma chine and weeping in secret every time her attention was called to these trifling vagaries, we were reluctantly obliged to part.
 Ill making my next selection I deter mined to find girl with more confidence in herself Miss Corrigan was that same girl.
 She had a way of f1inging herself upon lTt 1ndcnlne tdIttl ldlAluS uOWll a lelleI in 5horthand) like a bright young be- ginner who was inspired and her spirited staccato pleased me. at first and per suaded me that here was the girl for my money, but after l had learned that she used about a dollars worth of letter heads for each letter produced I began to doubt. One Saturday morning l had eight important letters to get off, and a careful search disclosed only ten letter heads in the office. With these ten letter heads I sneaked out to a private stenog- rather and had my eight letters wr-ten there but when Miss Corrigan found it out she took it deeply to heart. She wouldn't speak to me all that afternoon, and have never seen her since.
 The third young beginner, Miss Beach, vent through her preliminary paces well, and when she brought me the sample letter with only one mistake, there" for their" I rubbed my eyes and blessed my stars at last. engaging her on the spot She started work the next morn ing and brought her lunch with her.
 Whenever I think of Miss Beach I see