is not actually at the
office?_

As employers pile responsibility upon your husband, more and more care
must be used in the allocation of time to social affairs. You may be
able to rest the next day, but business does not permit husbands to rest
on the job.

_8. Do I act as a balance wheel, cheering him intelligently when he is
tired or discouraged, or do I rub him the wrong way on such occasions?_

If your husband does not share with you his disappointments, it is
almost invariably because you have not qualified yourself to share them.

_9. Do I try to smooth things out after unpleasant discussions--as I
would if a new dress or theatre party were at stake?_

Many married persons have an uncanny capacity for making miserable the
objects of their affection. It is said that the course of true love
never did run smooth, but the wise husband or wife will not
unnecessarily roughen it.

_10. Do I carry my share of responsibility, or do I save up all the
petty annoyances for our dinner-table conversation?_

Wives who complain that their husbands are silent during dinner have
usually good reason to overhaul the quality of their own conversation.
Don't bore him with your fight with the grocer or the catty things Mrs.
X said at bridge or afternoon tea.

Here are some actual examples of the way wives affect their husband's
business:

We selected Blake for a branch managership at Chicago, and we thought
that his wife could measure up. We took him out of a job where he had
reached his limit and placed him in one where his developed ability
might enable him to earn twice his salary. He failed. We who appointed
this man took the blame for his failure, because _business recognizes no
alibis_. As usual, it wasn't that he didn't want to be a branch manager,
or that he didn't know enough, or that he wasn't willing to work hard
enough. We found that the trouble was within his emotional mechanism. He
was losing his head and his temper at the wrong times.

At last he wrote to his firm: "This town takes the heart out of my wife.
She is terribly lonesome, refuses to make new friends, and reminds me
continually of the good times we used to have back home. Her mother
misses her and threatens to come to live with us here. I appreciate this
opportunity, and I know that we have more of everything here than we had
back home, but I want my old job back. I can't stand it here."

Business doesn't work that way, and so we persuaded another