The herald-advance. (Milbank, S.D.) 1890-1922, 1918-03-08
Wanted: A
Wife
~
@0 AZ
Copyright. 1918. by the Mcclure Newspa-
per Syndicate.)
By OSBORN JONES

As Paul Bolton glanced at the dozen
or so freshly typed letters on his desk
toward five In the afternoon on New
Years eve he reflected that they were
n last letters dated 1917 that he
would ever sign. Therefore the me-
chanical act of afiixing his signature
would be somewhat more momentous
than that performance usually was
1t would be In some slight measure
epochal, because it 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 was
intensely exasperating. The ink bot
tie had been allowed to go dry and
only q gummy mass of metallic black
showed in the bottom of the inkwell.
1t was really almost pathetic, he re-
fected, 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 owe empty ink wells.
Every modern convenience Of efficien-
cy In business methods had been in
stalled in his Office-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,
drinking glasses and untitled water
bottles. He was tired from an extremely
trying week and SO instead of rising in
wrath and storming ut Office boys, Sec
.retaries, stenographers and every one
else within reach Of his voice-and
Paul Bolton was quite capable Of hav-
Ing expressed his feelings in that way
he was filed with self-pity. No one
really cared enough for him to spare
him those annoyances.s He went to a
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 no 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 DC
casion. The CRATE fire was not lighted.
The Jap explained that no coal could
be got. Well, the Jap ought to have
got a skuttlefNl somewhere. II he
bad cared for him as much as he
seemed he would have got a SHUTTLE
ful somewhere. And dinner wasn't
exactly what he wanted, and his slip
pers hadn't been warmed and the wa
ter was too cold The jap ought to
have known by that time that he
didn't like ice water.
So it was that the next day, when
Bolton began to think about New
Years resolutions, he registered two
resolves, brief vet Important. To get
a really efficient private secretary-a
young woman who would are enough
to see that the inkwells e filled,
and to get a wife. A wife would see
to the jonQuils and the slippers he
was sure.
Before q month had passed Bolton
had achieved one Of his resolutions.
He had obtained from IN exclusive
agency q young woman Of unusual
Blair-who had proved
to b worth considerably more
than the forty dollars q week that she
had demanded. So Bottoms days were
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 it W to his own
and she always did things
perfect ease. She didn't have to /
all the inkwells or dust the desk, but
showed her forty-douars-a-
week value-she saw to 1t that the
office boys did. It was always that
way with her. She never seemed to be
especially busy and yet everything was
lone.
But Bolton still had no wife and the
lap did not improve. Another Jap
would have been no better. Bolton
vas sure It was only q wife who could
make his cup Of happiness complete.
And yet there ere wives and wives.
The wife he wanted was not like those
II any Of his men friends. In tho
1rst place she would have to DO COM
and sympathetic and slim
when no was weary from tho
nice grind and then shs would have
% regard her task of being hls wife
ind home maker - seriously 90 he
regarded his business Of being pres
dent, of Blank and Bridges Bolton
,egan accepting Invitations to dinners
ind dances In the hope of finding his
,araRon but he was always u~nsucces0.