The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1912-03-01
THE EVENING STORY
The Fifth stenographer.
(By Edmund Moberly.)

of B. Holbrook & Company, jobbers
had been absent from his business fol-
three weeks, and therefore entered his
| office resolved to get back into harness
| as speedily as possible. After wadine
through a mass of accumulated CORE
lspondence, he rang for his confidential
| stenogra pher. She failed to appear
| A second and third ring were equally
| barren of results. Mr.. Holbrook grew
indignant. With savage jab, he
touched another button on his desk
clerk, stood at his elbow.
Watson he demanded, ''why
doesn't Miss Gayley respond to her
caT?''
Miss Gayley was married while you
| were away
Yes" responded Watson with a
smile. "Smithers. ore of the book
keepers. is the other guilty party"
| well, he got a sensible wife. con-
found him. Give him a ten per cent
raise. At the same time he robbed me
of good stenographer just when she
had become efficient and valuable. 1t
| strikes me these cases are becoming
pretty frequent in this office, a en-
! they, Watson?"
| This is the fourth in three years.
| Exactly agreed Mr.. Holbrook.
-Four in three years, of which your
own case was the first. Matrimony IS
a, noble institution, Watson, but it cam
not be allowed to play hob with this
business the way it has been doing.
propose now to get a stenographer who
viii REGARD this office sonnet hin Q
more than a stepping stone to mar
mage MISS Gayley~s SUCCESSOR must oe
at least thirty-five years old. You will
advertise at once for a lady confessing
to that many summers. If you cannot
find "a TO OF
prefer the woman, if she exists
| BENJAMIN Holbrook had never been
married. At the age when other men
| take unto themselves wives, he had
been too busy smoothing the path of
the newly eSta blished firm of B. Hol-
| brook & Co. over the thorny ways
which infant industries must travel.
Matrimony, he had reasoned, must
wait upon success. Success he had
finally achieved, and now It waited
upon matrimony. If Questioned, he
would not have been able to say
whether he had eluded matrimony or
matrimony had eluded him, but now,
at the age of forty, he was forced to
! was still possible in his case, it did not
seem very probable.
| Being a bachelor, he had never been
able to fathom the mental processes
which led a girl to abandon a COM
Portable salary in his office for the
| purpose of sharing the salary of a
male worker in the same office, and
| in much less degree had he been able
to understand the line of reasoning
which led the aforesaid male worker
| to persuade her to do so.
In employing office help, the head
! of the firm was able to discern merit
at glance. All his male subordi-
! mates had good qualities. The four
women who had reigned in brief sue
oossiorl IN - office we're all we'll en-
dowed in this respect-so well en-
dowed, indeed, that four of the male
SUI. hos, ..d,4 t4sck-rneu lhe.r M.
it even better than the boss with the
result that for the fifth time in three
years that gentleman, with ali a bach
elorS dislike for change in the existing
order of things, faced the disagreed BILE
prospect of becoming accustomed to a
new stenographer. 1t was this fact,
coupled with the knowledge that there
were yet several unmarried men in
the office, all with good qualities, that
led him to issue his edict concerning
the age of the next woman who should
grace his establishment.
Watson's advertisement brought
but one applicant to Mr.. HolbroOk-a
handsome, somewhat sad-faced wo-
man. whose gown of black well be-
came the slender plumpness of her
figure.
II am Miss Holmes" she stated
simply. Il have come in answer to
your advertisement for a stenogra
pher.'
''Thirty-five years of age. or old
err" added Mr.. Holbrook.
ct am able to meet that condition."
was the calm reply.
The head of the firm was forced to
confess to himself that she did not
look it.
Have you had any experience in
This capacity?'' he asked.
None, whatever she answered.
But [ have a good education and have
fitted myself carefully for such a po-
sition, and I feel L can meet all the
requirements set forth in your some
what unusual advertisement
''It was a little out of the ordinary,
wasn't it?''
yes"
But there was a REASON for it.
During the last three years, 1 have
lost no less than four stenographers
through rnatrfmony. It was a desire
to secure some one who would view
business as other than a stepping
stone to marriage that prompted that
ad."
Il can safely say that there is
prospect of my making such use of
it, replied Miss Holmes.
A trial showed that she was well
equipped for the position. Mr.. Hol-
brook reflected, also, thai he had never
recognized so many good qualities in
an applicant before He therefore en-
gagged her, and in a few weeks found
reason to congratulate himself; for she
developed an efficiency even above that
of her very efficient predecessors. In d
few months he began to regard her IS
Indispensable, and found himself re-
GREETING that she was near him in Of
fee hours only.
And then it came. He was debating
to her one day, he on the one side of
the big. fat Office table, and she on
the other, facing him While grasping
for some solution to a knotty business
problem, he allowed his mind to wan
Ger. The plainly furnished Office faded
from his vision The table became a