How can a firm employ a stenographer who says "ain't"?
She offered me a piece of gum—unchewed. I took it and disconsolately went to work.
"Got soaked in the eye, didn't you?" she inquired sympathetically.
I nodded. I knew what she meant by that.
"Well, you'll get next to something soon," said Estelle. "What's your line?"
I started to say "journalism." In Canada we never say "newspaper work." Journalism seems a politer and more dignified term. To Estelle I said, "I write," thinking that that would be clear; but it was not. She thought I meant I wrote letters by hand, and she said at once:
"Say, if I were you, I'd learn type-writing. You can clip off ten words on the machine to one you can write by hand, and it's dead easy to get a job as a type-writer. Gee! I don't see how you expect to get anything by writing! That's out of date now, girl. Say, where do you come from, anyhow?"
Unconsciously, Estelle had given me an idea. Why should I not learn type-writing? I was an expert at shorthand, and if I could teach myself that, I could also teach myself type-writing. If a girl like Estelle could get fifteen dollars a week for work like that, what could not I, with my superior education—
Heavens and earth! compared with Estelle I called myself "educated," I whose mind was a dismal abyss of appalling ignorance!
A type-writer, then, I determined to be. It was a come-down; but I felt sure I would not need to do it for long. Estelle generously offered to have a type-writer sent to our room (three dollars a month for a good machine), and she said she would show me how to use it. In a few weeks, she said, I would be ready for a position.