Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1917-07-22
TAKING DICTATlON
By EARL REED SILVEES

| lhSly at the typed letter he held. an,
 decided that it was d failure. Unde
 ordinary circumstances, Mr. Nreelaut
 would have wrathfully summoned hi.
 stenographcr, demanded to know wha
 business agency bad the audacitv tt
 thrust such an example of incflicienc,
 upon Nreeland & Co., and then would
 nave told the aforesaid example, kind
 iy but firmly. that her services were ne
 longer required.
 But MT. Nreeland did nothing of the
 Kind. Instead. he set himself before
 his own glittering machine, inserted
 one of the firms letterheads, and
 copied the letter he had dictated but
 an hour before. The changes having
 been made, he signed his name and
 pushed button on his desk.
 Miss Betty Baxter entered the room. and instantly the sun seemed to shine
 more brightly In direct defiance of the
 rules of business etiquette, Betty wore
 a White dress, with fril1s at the cuffs
 and lace at the neck. Her golden hair
 was drawn back, but not because Betty mad any desire to appear businesslike. 1t happened to be the style most be- coming to her. She wore white silk stockings and white kid pumps: and When MT. Francis Vreeland's eyes rested upon her, his heart beat lively tattoo beneath his manly bosom.
 The head of the firm of Vreeland & Co. was really too young to direct the fortunes of so prosperous a con- cern. He was twenty-eght. to be ey. act, and if the business had not been inherited from hard-working father he would probably have been laborinc his heart away in downtown office for salary of something like thirty dollars a week. But Francis, as his many friends called him, was one of those'men who have greatness thrust upon them; and so he was the big boss In big firm, with an income of some- thing like thirty thousand dollars a year.
 And Betty Baxter was pretty, a good dancer an excellent tennis player and swimmer of more than local renown, But she was poor stenographer
 The fact that Betty even attempted stenography is a story in itself. Two years before the BaXters and the Vree- lands had lived side by side in one of New Jerseys most exclusive suburbs. Betty drove her own car to meet her father at the railroad station, and in the evening MT. Baxter and MT. Vree. land, Sr, sat on the porch of the Bax. 1 ter home and discussed stocks and l bonds, while Miss Baxter and MT, Vreeland, Jr., wandered off around the | corner.
 And then something had happened l which swept away the Baxter fortune | IS If 1t had been mere chicken house in the path of the Johnstown flood, leaving the father crushed and pur- ooseless and the daughter stunned with he realization of sudden poverty. Francis had asked her to marry him hen.
 "You are only asking me out of 'ity," she had said. 'I-I must find to do."
 So she had gone to business school which promised to teach in three months what other schools teach in a ear, and, having been duly graduated, he was given position in a Wall treet office. The next day she was dis hareed. In the evening of that same lay, Francis decided that his business lad grown so much that he needed a 'ersonal stenographer, and Betty &C., opted the position.
 And so she was rather surprised then MT. Francis Vreeland, having re- yped her latest letter, drowned threat ningly upon her as she took her &C., ustomed place beside his desk.
 Betty" he said, after long wait, do you like your work?" "Of course do," she answered.
 "Why?"
 "Why are you putting me through he third degree" she asked. a. T just want some information rancis leaned forward and tapped on 1e desk with his pencil. "How would ou like to have another job?" .st Do you mean that I haven't done atisfactory work here?' 1 "Yes."
 Francis spoke rather severely, and . le girl before him did not see the yinkle which lay half hidden in his yes. She caught her breath sharply. "I'll go now," she said simply. "No, wait minute" Francis held up Is hand. Lets be perfectly frank, etty," he continued. "As a stenog. lpher you're mighty pretty girl, but , mighty pretty girl you're a failure } stenographer. You weren't meant } take dictation, were you, dear2' '' ''No," she answered, "I'm not used } it.'
 "Well," Francis continued, '.from ow on you're going to have a new job. eginning today want you to dictate me-"
 Copyright, 1917 by the Mcclure Newspa-
 per Syndicate.)