, 1918-03-07

AS Paul Bolton glanced at the dozen
OF so freshly typed letters on his desk
toward five in the afternoon on New
Years eve he reflected that they were
the last letters dated 1917 that he
would ever sign. Therefore the me-
chanical act of affixlng his signature
would be somewhat more momentous
than that performance usually was
1t would be in some slight measure
epochal, because 1t registered the pass
ing of another year. Therefore he
took the pen from the pen tray with
rather more than usual care and dipped
1t in the heavy glass ink bottle that lay
before him on his monster mahogany
desk. Drawing the top letter on the
pile to him he started to sign, but the
pen made no mark. Irritation imme-
diately supplanted any interest that he
may have felt in the signing. 1t vas
intensely exasperating. The ink bot
tie had been allowed to go dry and
only a gummy mass of metallic black
showed in the bottom of the inkwell.
1t was really almost pathetic, he re-
flected, that he, the president of the
great concern of Blank & Bridges-he
whose time was worth to that concern
some twenty thousand dollars a year
should have to waste that precious
time fretting ove empty ink wells.
Every modern convenience of efficien-
cy in business methods had been in
stalled in his ofice-there were silent
typewriters and automatic letter
openers and a girls lunch room and
employers insurance and annual
bonuses-all the result of his desire
to show consideration for his EN-
ployees-and yet he-Paul Bolton
had to fret himself day after day
about such things as empty ink bottles,
undusted desks and chairs, unwashed
drinking glasses and untitled water
bottles. He was tired from an extremely
trying week and sc instead Of rising in
wrath and stOrming at office boys, sec
retaries, stenographers and every INT
else within reach of his voice-and
Paul Bolton was quite capable of hav-
ing expressed his feelings In that way
he was filled with self-pity. No n
really cared enough for him to spare
him those annoyances. He went to q
stenographer's desk, found an inkwell
that happened to be filed and signed
the letters dejectedly.
Then he went to his nearby apart
ments where he reigned in bachelor
supremacy and his experience there
showed him again that nc one really
cared. There were no fresh flowers.
Bolton especially liked to have yellow
daffodils and jonquils in his rooms on
cold, raw winter nights and he had
told his Jap SO on more than n &C.
casion. The crate fire was not lighted.
The Jap explained that no coal could
be got. Well, the Jap ought to have
got a skuttleful somewhere. If he
had cared for him as much as he
seemed he would have got a SHUTTLE
full somewhere. And dinner wasn't
exactly what he wanted, and his slip
pers hadn't been warmed and the va
ter was too cold. The Jap ought to
have known by that time that he
didn't like ice water.
So 1t was that the next day, when
Bolton began to think about New
Years resolutions. he registered two
resolves, brief yet important. To get
a really efficient private secretary-a
young woman who would care enough
to see that the inkwells were filled,
and to get a wife. A wife would SCI
to the jonquils and the slippers he
was sure.
Before a month had passed Bolton
had achieved one of his resolutions.
He had obtained from an exclusive
agency a young woman of unusual
merit-Alice Blair-who had proved
herself to be worth considerably more
than the forty dollars a week that she
had demanded. So Bottoms days were
passed with an absence of confusion
and irritation. Miss Blair seemed to
get inside his mind and find out just
what he wanted done before he had
time to formulate 1t even to his own
knowledge and she always did things
with perfect ease. She didn't have to
hll the inkwells or dust the desk, but
whit showed her forty-dollars-a-
week value-she saw to It that the
office boys did. 1t was always that
way with her. She never seemed to be
especially busy and yet everything was
done.
But Bolton still had no wife and the
Jap did not improve. Another Jap
would have been no better. Bolton
was sure 1t vas only a wife who could
make his cup of happiness complete.
And yet there were wives and wives.
The wife he wanted was not like those
of any of his men friends. In the
first Mace she would have IN no cOm-