The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1919-07-28
EVENING STORY
YioIa's Other Trade. .

had the best room at Mrs. Finlays, |
and the best table at the Comfy" res |
taurant. and two suits of clothes made |
by Blair & Holbrook every year
which was faster than he wore them
out-and could Jingle a pocketful of
money any time and had solid ac- }
count in a savings bank and OWNED
a mortgage and fully as many liberty
bonds as most folks and was altogether
comfortable circumstanced person.
And incidentally why he was at once
the hope and despair of more fiappers
than any of the many younger and
more dashing chaps in the establish
ment OF Hemingway. Inc, which was
not so much a publishing house as 1t
was a 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 and
settled enough so that there wasn't
one of the many, many girls at Hem
ingways, who wouldn't have been Will
ing to bank on Tommy as the sort of
man who. If a girl could 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 Henin gwAys had
! had as much experience as the girls Of
any other large OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES
is a good deal. Like Name Austin,
| f rinstance-'member Name, doncha?
Sure-married that dressed up tramp
| of 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 homework, too.
ever since!
| AS room foreman, at a good salary.
and as a pleasant, well hammered gen.
tleman 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
mildest of flirtations within the history
or knowledge of the Hemingway per-
sonnet. then. Tommy was the direct
objective of more allurements. and had
/ caused more fluttering OF flapper
| 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 Hemingways one
Viola Heath. svelte and sophisticated
maiden from the Alden book concern.
who made vastly fewer errors in cos
| tuning herself than she did in setting
a galley of proof Viola chucked up
perfectly good job with the Alden
where she had a machine of her own.
to come to Heminway's- as a substi-
tute or extra comrositor.
And because little Annie Joyce knew
straight off why she had come. Annie
| could have poured a la6le 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
hn
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 MIN,
and, in fact, apparently ignored him.
If 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 propose
to go about it by any giggly simpering
methods whatsoever.
She ignored Tommy, too. But the
way of her doing it was very different
from Armies. She ignored him con-
spicuously. obtrusively, with such OBJ
vious malice prepense 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
was, he wasn't wise enough nor wary
enough to have his guard up against
this sort of attack.
Two weeks found Tommy diligent-
! ly striving to break thru the barrier of
reserve that Miss Heath from the be-
| ginning had erected against him.. A
month found him taking her to the
| theater. In two months, so the office
| concluded, il was all over but the ring
and the bells.
Meantime little Annie Joyce, from
much aching in that flapper heart of
| hers, was going off in her looks, and
| what was worse from the Hemingway
point of view. going off in her work
as well. She was barely getting by the
| dead line. and her proofs were not
what they used to be. Tommy, kind
Hest of critics, had to tell her so one
day.
whereupon Annie Joyce did a sur
prising thing. She stared with ex-
traordinarily wide eyes at Tommy,
then Topped around on her machine
stool, cross her knees, grabbed the
uppermost knee with a desperate
clutch of both hands and doubled her
| head over them in the very worst
| paroxysm of woe that Tommy Perduth
had ever in all his bachelor days en-
| countered.
+ Why, why, why!" exclaimed Tom
my, all a-gasp; what all this for
I'm not bawling you out, little girl:
only just sort Of
stop it! Stop ST." sobbed Annie.
"You-you wicked mani"
Well. what do you" began the
dazed Tommy. Look here, kid, do
you think it's wicked for me to tell
girl she's falling down on her job?
What kind of a foreman
"Oh. it isn't that" moaned Annie.
TT isn't that-what you suppose 1
c-c-care for a b-b-bawling out? But
it's w-w-wicked as it can be for
good m-man that plenty of g-good
girls would g-g-give their heads for to
make a g-g-goat of himself for a
a adventuressi"
Here" interrupted Tommy. stern
1n .,at,