MR.    SMEETH   IS   REASSURED	69
coming passengers, thrown back or hurled forward by
ttie tram itself, an irritable and only half tamed brute,
he stared at the jogging print and tried to acquaint him-
self with the latest and most important news of the day.
An excitable column and a half told him that a young
musical comedy actress, whom he had never seen and
had no particular desire to see, had got engaged, that it
had been quite a romance, that she was very, very happy
and not sure yet whether she would leave the stage or
not. Mr. Smeeth, not caring whether she left the stage
or dropped dead on it, turned to another column. This
discussed the problem of careers for married women, a
problem that had been left absolutely untouched since
the morning papers came out, ten hours before. It did
not interest Mr. Smeeth, so he tried another column.
This reported an action for divorce, in which it appeared
that the petitioning wife had only been allowed a hun-
dred and fifty pounds a year on which to dress herself.
The Judge had said that this seemed to him—a mere
bachelor (laughter)-an adequate allowance, but the
paper had collected the opinions of well-known society
hostesses, who all said it was not adequate. Mr. Smeeth,
who found he could not share the editor's passionate
interest in this topic, now tried another page, which
promptly informed him that evening gowns would cer-
tainly be longer this winter, and then went on to tell
him, to the tune of three solid columns, that the modern
business girl (with her latch-key) had quite a different
attitude towards marriage and therefore must not be
confused with her grandmother (Victorian, with no
latch-key). Mr. Smeeth, feeling sure that he had read
all this before, passed on, and arrived at the sports page,
.where the prospects of certain women golfers were