The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-09-11
LISTENING INV
 ON EYE
During The Wait SUPPOSE you are waiting for Hester to finish getting ready to

go somewhere, aren't you?" in- quired the peeved father of Che per- sistent man whom he had seen around the home quite frequently.
 "Why, yes," admitted the persistent young man, glancing@at his watch with a slight frown. q explained to her when I asked her that we absolutely had to start at 8 in order to get there on time--but I guess she has been de- layed or something"
 ''Of course she's been delayed !" snort ed the peeved father sympathetically. ''They think if they should be on time it would mean they weren't popular and rushed to death--that's what ails 'em! If I were the boys these days I'd shake 'em all
 Tt took us a long time to realize the way they figured things out! Hester, my wife would say at the dinner table, I thought you were going to the thea ter this evening with Artie Choke-and you aren't dressed for it or anything and there's only fifteen minutes
 "'Oh, I've plenty of time,' Hester would say langlidly. Just as Artie rushed in Hester would disappear up the stairs and in one hour and quar- ter she woul< dappear, radiant, and he would greet her politely just as though he hidn't been ready to murder her for the last half hour.
 "When Hester's girl friend was here visiting her I assure you I thought I should finish a white-headed man at 45, such was the mental anguish un- derwent. I was eternally expecting them to go. somewhere, always finding them apparently settled down for the evening at home and invariably being deluged with anxious youths who had arrived to escort them to an evenings 8 gayety. Then I had to entertain the anxious escorts for a couple of hours during which they smoked up all my best cigars and cigarettes.
 'Then I inquired, why didn't the boys have sense enough to utilize all that waste time? If they expected to call at 8 80 and were dead sure the girl had no intention of being ready to go until 9 80, why not telephone at 8 and call time, then settle down for an hour or so and, study Sanscript or comr parative ichthyology instead of dismally waiting at the girls house with blank minds, wearing out a $2OO davenport and gazing at a corner of the ceiling?
 But no! The girls want their vic tins on the spot, suffering, where they can be sure of their discomfort and anguish. There is no object in keep ing them waiting if they were, to man age to have a good time about 1t.
 Mot that they work it exactly after this fashion, but such is the inference I draw from their surprised and .te- proving remarks addressed to me. They are late to lunch because they were late to breakfast and not being hungry had not realized how late it was-and they are progressively late to dinners. It does not worry them. They remain quite calm and faintly amused at the perturbation of my wife, who is afraid the cook will not understand the fine points of the idea and leave. And they are always too late to get their room strengthened up for the reason that they were already late for whatever the appointment is. And when they get back it is too late to clear it up for that day because by that time it is the next day anyhow.