Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1918-06-13
Wanted:A
Wife
IN
BY OSBORN JONES

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| Copyright, 1878, by the Mcclure Newspa-
per Syndicate)
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
the last letters dated 1917 that he
would ever sign. Therefore the me-
chanical act of affixing his signature
would be somewhat more momentous
| than that performance usually was
| 1t would be In some slight measure
| epochal, because ii 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 inkweil.
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 over empty ink wells.
| ,f fisfar
| 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,
| undusted desks and chairs, unwashed
| drinking glasses and untitled water
| bottles. He was tired from an extremely
trying week and so instead of rising in
| wrath and storming at office boys, sec
| retaries, stenographers and every one
| else within reach of his yoice-and
| Paul Bolton was quite capable of hav-
ing expressed his feelings in that way
he was filled with self-pity. No one
really cared enough for him to spare
| him those annoyances. He went TO a
stenographer's desk, found an inkwell
| that happened TO be filled 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 one oc-
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. Ii 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 wa
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 yet important TO get
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 see
to the jonquilS and the slippers he
was sure.
Before month had passed Bolton
had achieved one of his resolutions.
He had obtained from an exclusive
agency 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 IL even to his own
knowledge and she always did things
with perfect ease. She didn't have to
fill the inkwells or dust the desk, but
what showed her forty-dollars-a-
week value-she saw to II that the
Office boys did. Ii 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 it was only 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 place she would have to be com
panionable and sympathetic and slim
ulating when he was weary from the
office grind and then She would have
TO regard her task of being his wife
and home maker as seriously as he
regarded his business of being pres |
ident OF Blank and Bridges. Bolton /
began accepting invitations to dinners
and dances in the hope Of finding his
paragon but he was always unsuccess.