More Than a Secretary

Carol Baldwin:
Slash. Dash. Crash. Mash. Bash. Relax, girls. Relax! Don't attack your machines. Remember the typewriter's an instrument, not a man.

Helen Davis:
Peter, Paula's pretty pet pekingese puppy playfully pulled poor p*ssy's paw.

Helen Davis:
It's always Spring with my little darlings. They only know one season and that's the mating season.

Carol Baldwin:
What's this? Are you typing in code?

Maizie West:
Oh, eh, the keys got mixed up.

Carol Baldwin:
Looks like a Chinese laundry ticket.

Helen Davis:
You can't spell. You can't take dictation and you can't type. As a business woman you're a complete failure.

Helen Davis:
You mean to tell me you're giving a second thought to what that little nitwit said? What have we got to worry about? We have this school, we're free. Independent!

Carol Baldwin:
We certainly are. That's just the trouble.

Helen Davis:
Now don't tell me you're getting Spring fever too?

Bill Houston:
I sometimes find a lack of experience an asset in a woman. That is, in a woman secretary. Yes, I've always said, "As the twig is bent, so is the tree inclined".

Carol Baldwin:
Oh, wait. Wait!

Helen Davis:
Let nature take its course, deary.

Carol Baldwin:
Oh, she can't even spell.

Helen Davis:
She can spell what he wants in capital letters.

Carol Baldwin:
He's fired another one of our girls. He's fired half his office force. He wants to know what's wrong with the modern woman.

Helen Davis:
The modern man.

Carol Baldwin:
I'm going down there and talk to him. I just want to know what he expects from a secretary.

Carol Baldwin:
I'm Miss Baldwin from the Supreme Secretarial School and I...

Fred Gilbert:
Oh, you are, huh. Mmm. Well, offhand I can't tell a thing about you. I will say though, there's some suggestion of modesty. The other girls trooped in here looking like a lot of chorus girls!

Helen Davis:
You've got the school, a business of your own, and you want to give that up for a twenty-five dollar a week job?

Carol Baldwin:
But, Helen, you don't understand. He's young. He's very good looking. He's healthy. He's intelligent. And he's not married!

Fred Gilbert:
Oh, you want some raw carrot?

Carol Baldwin:
Eh, no thank you.

Fred Gilbert:
Good for you. Builds brain cells.

Carol Baldwin:
Oh really, you know I always thought that fish...

Fred Gilbert:
Fish? Fish! Popular fallacy.

[Back to dictating his letter]

Fred Gilbert:
What did I say last?

Carol Baldwin:
Poppycock.

Fred Gilbert:
For ages, the heart has been elevated to a place of primary importance in the human body. Poets as well as scientists have helped contribute to this elevation. By now, the fallacy is an excepted thing. But, I wish to explode this myth. The heart is not the seat of our emotions! That place of honor belongs to the liver!

Fred Gilbert:
Oh, have I shown you an article on body tone and office efficiency in the May issue?

Carol Baldwin:
I wait for years, finally, I pick my man. And what is he? A slave driver. A calisthenics expert. A guy that lives on mattress stuffing!

Carol Baldwin:
You see that? It's meat. Ah, but, it's bad for you. You lose your teeth, your eyesight, your brain cells. It's slow death. Steak! Mmm, come kill Mama.

Carol Baldwin:
He looks into your eyes to find out the condition of your liver. There's nothing human about him. He's a total loss. And that's what I picked.

Carol Baldwin:
Oh, what a pity. What a pity. He looks so nice. And when he smiles. He smiled twice today. I tell you, it warms you right down to your toes. [sighs] Where are you going?

Helen Davis:
To get you a big dose of sulfur and molasses.

Fred Gilbert:
Oh, you mean, make sort of a racket out of it, I suppose.

Carol Baldwin:
Sure. Why not? Everybody else does it. You buy toothpaste because a couple of blackface comics make you laugh. Coffee isn't coffee anymore, it's an amateur hour. Soap? Why soap is the road to love! Ballyhoo, that's what gets 'em.

Carol Baldwin:
Now, take your covers. Who wants to look at a man with great bulging muscles? Everybody likes to look at a beautiful woman. Put her in one of those bathing suits you could thread a needle with and everybody will stop and look. The women will try to figure how they can wear themselves down to the size...

Fred Gilbert:
Hey, Just, just, just a minute. Just a minute, Miss Baldwin. I'm not putting out a sex magazine. Body and Brain is a dignified publication.

Carol Baldwin:
But, it doesn't have to be dull!

Carol Baldwin:
Its beginning to rain!

Fred Gilbert:
That's fine, I love rain.

Carol Baldwin:
So do I, on the roof.

Fred Gilbert:
Oh, you're spoiled and soft!

Carol Baldwin:
I"m cold and wet!

Fred Gilbert:
This is a health magazine, Miss Baldwin. Health! Not a circus! You were brought in here as a secretary, not an advisor. And just because I was foolish enough to ask your opinion about the magazine, you took advantage of it. You and like all the other women in business, you can't keep your place!

Helen Davis:
It serves you right for ever letting on you're smarter than a man. They can't take it.

Ernest:
Don't be so bellicose. Men don't like women who are bellicose. I don't wanna have no trouble from you.

Carol Baldwin:
You know, you really ought to smile all the time.

Ernest:
What's happened to the chief?

Carol Baldwin:
I don't know. Why, what's the matter?

Ernest:
Oh, keep your blouse on, he's alright.

Maizie West:
I think education is terribly important. I came pretty near getting a dose of it myself. My father was awfully ambitious on account of me. I can hear him like it was only yesterday saying to Mama, "Mama, we ought to do something about Maizie's mind." Oh, yeah, of course he never did, on account being took very sudden and leaving me to look after poor Mama. But, even if I couldn't take a course, I was always lapping up culture.

Bill Houston:
Oh, Maizie, perhaps Mr. Gilbert would like a high ball.

Maizie West:
Would you?

Fred Gilbert:
Oh, thanks. I don't think I will.

Maizie West:
Oh, that's wonderful. I wish more men were like that. People laugh at me for being so temperance. But, it sure burns me up to see men guzzling a lot of hooch!

Maizie West:
I think the body is awfully important, don't you Mr. Gilbert?

Fred Gilbert:
Oh, eh, terribly important.

Maizie West:
My mother was of the same opinion. I can hear her say now, "Take care of your body, Maizie because its all you've got". Of course, it hasn't been very easy, on account of my not bein' strong. I often think my body's my own worst enemy.

Maizie West:
Excuse it, please, Mr. Houston. Mr. Gilbert and me was discussing our bodies.

Carol Baldwin:
Are you going to dictate?

Maizie West:
Is, eh, is she a woman?

Fred Gilbert:
Oh, yes.

Maizie West:
Oh dear, I do hope she'll like me. Women don't always do.

Maizie West:
Miss Baldwin, are there two "b"s in a liver?

Ernest:
What a worm. What a worm!

Carol Baldwin:
No, Ernest, I'm the worm!

Maizie West:
Good morning, darling. What's the matter with my toots?

Fred Gilbert:
Don't call me toots!

Maizie West:
Why not?

Fred Gilbert:
In the office I'd like you to remember its Mr. Gilbert.

Maizie West:
Anything you say, toots!

Carol Baldwin:
You are so satisfied with yourself and you keep on making one mistake right after the other. First, you act like a fussy old maid. Next, you're sillier than a college boy out on a spree. You haven't any sense at all!