The West Virginian. [volume] (Fairmont, W. Va.) 1914-1974, 1919-07-28
THE DAILY
SHORT STORY
viola's Other Trade.
~ WIFI Z. AMEs.
Copyright. 1913. by the Mcclure

Newspaper syndicate.)
~LD and wise was Tommy Per-
duth-old and wise and wary.
That's why he had the best room
at Mrs. Finlays, and the best table at
the Comfy restaurant, and twp suits
OF clothes made by Blair G. Holbrook
every year-which was faster than he
wore them out-and could jingle q
ypocketful of money any time and had
solid account In savings bank and
owned q mortgage and fully as many
Liberty bonds as most folks and was
altogether . comfortably ctrcutn-
etanced person.
And incidentally why he was at
once the hope and despair OF more
nappers than any Of the many young
er and more dashing chaps in the es-
tabiiBhment OF Hemingway, Inc. which
was not SO much a publishing house
az It was book factory.
Not that Tommy was really and
truly stricken in years to any such
extent as. say, Methuselah; nor that
his wisdom was Of the solomonesque
variety-Tommy, In fact, was Just
turned forty and never set up for
an oracle. But he was old enough
hnu 66LblGu bO IluI Gh0LS
wasn't one of the many. many girls
at Hemingways, who wouldn't have
been willing TO bank on Tommy as
-the sort of man who, If girl coulu
only land him, would stay landed
She would run small risk indeed of
becoming the victim OF one Of those
utterly disappointing unions with
which the girls at Hemingways had
49,, a,AaS.lanna fha orirla ~
any other large establishment-which
10 o good deal. Like Name Austin,
NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. Name, doncha?
OF O Fleming on No. 81 machine four
years ago; and he quit work and went
to shooting pool five weeks afterward
and she's been working at the Els
Press and doing the housework, too,
ever since!
As room foreman, at a good salary,
and as a pleasant, we'll hammered gem
tlenan who had never been known to
be the least bit fresh with girl-and
especially and particularly as one
whom no unmarried female had ever
been able to inveigle into even the
xnildest OF flirtations within the history
= For knowledge OF the Hemingway per-
Fph4GAt 4OA4hS wac tAS 04ASSb
objective Of more alluremants, and
had caused more fluttering of flap
per hearts by his frequent but frank
and open smiles than any half dozen
other men in the whole works.
To sum It up, Tommy Perduth, with
his good looks, his good manners, his
good intellect and his good principles.
was a mighty good match. And his
well-known financial warmth didn't
hurt him any, in any girls eyes.
Came, then, to Hemingway's one
Viola Heath, svelte and sophisticat-
ed maiden from the Alden book con-
cer1, who made vastly fewer errors in
costuming herself than she did in set
ting a galley OF proof Viola chucked
up perfectly good Job with the Alden,
where she had a machine of her own,
70 come to Hemingway's as substi-
tute or extra compositor.
And because little Annie Joyce
knew straight off why she had come,
Annie could have poured ladle OF
hot metal down the neck OF the brazen
hussy's blouse with a will-or fancied
she could, which amounts to the same
thing.
Now Annie was no little sprig of
! golden rod from the country. You
would have dubbed her, Individually,
as pert and flip a flapper as any of
the rest.
But she loved Tommy Perduth-
loved him with the whole Of her hot
little heart-and because she loved
him she was perhaps the one girl in
the place who never set herself in
his way, never made eyes at him,
and, In fact, apparently ignored him.
! II you don't know that type of girl
It Is because you don't know many
girls nor much about them.
Well, Viola was no new recruit to
( the game Of hearts. She had come to
Hemingway's to get Tommy Perduth
{ for her own, and she did not pro-
pose to go about 1t by any giggly
simpering methods whatsoever.
She ignored Tommy, too. But the
way OF her doing It was very different
from Annie's. She ignored him con-
sptcuously, obtrusively, with such OBJ
vious malice pretense that Tommy's
attention was most successfully chal-
{ lenged.
He wasn't used to being treated as
this tall, black eyed, deliberately got
up young operator was treating him.
: Old and wise and wary as Tommy
| Eas, he wasn't wise enough nor wary
enough to have his guard up against
this sort Of attack.
Two weeks found Tommy dill
gently striving to break through the
( barrier Of reserve that Miss Heath
from the beginning had erected
[ against him. A month found him
taking her to the theatre. In two
months so the office concluded, it
was all over but the ring and the
bells.
Meantime little Annie Joyce. from
rnudh acing in that flapper heart of
hers, was going on IN her looks, and
whattwas worse from the Hemingway
point Of view, going OF In her WORK
as well. She was barely getting by the
dead line. and her proofs were not what
they used to be. Tommy, kfndliest of
critics, had to tan her SO one day.
Whereupul Annie Joyce did a sur-
prising thing She stared with extra
prllinnEf1y Wide eyes ut Tommy, then
MDped aruund ON her machine stool.
EEpssed har knees, grabbed the upper-
ADS3 knee with . desperate clutch of
18th bands and doubled her head over
- r.