The energetic and self-respecting woman’s way is to “take a fresh grip.” Mrs. George Helm was younger than she had been since early girlhood. She felt utterly and blissfully irresponsible; had she not her George, and had not he taken everything on his shoulders--except looking after the money-spending, the house--and the baby? The house and the baby were a delight. Looking after the house meant making big George comfortable; looking after the baby meant making little George comfortable. As for the money, that was simple enough. In the first place, there wasn’t much of it; in the second place, George gave it all to her and meekly accepted the small allowance for pocket money--all he was fit to be trusted with. “Bill,” said George to the lazy friend whom he had made into his political manager and had forced to take the office of Attorney-General--“Bill, you ought to get married. My wife takes all the responsibilities off my shoulders and leaves me free just to have fun.” Bill was amused. Only a few minutes before Mrs. Helm had told him that a sensible woman--meaning, of course, herself--always chose a man she could trust and then turned over to him all the responsibilities and gave herself up to love and happiness. George Helm’s reason for looking younger was somewhat different. That is, he got the happiness in a different way. Much is said about the heavy cares of office, and certainly most men in high office do age rapidly. But Helm’s notion of the duties of office was not that usually held by officials. If a man spends his time at secretly doing things which would ruin him, were they found out--if he hides service of thieves and plunderers behind a pretense of public service, naturally he grows old rapidly. Such secrets and such terrors loosen the hair and the teeth, stoop the shoulders, yellow the fat and sag and wrinkle the cheeks. But if a man has no secrets in his public service, if he spends each day in the rejuvenating effort to do the square thing without troubling himself in the least about whether he will be misunderstood, or maligned, or beaten for a second term, he gets younger and happier all the time. For health and vitalizing no other vacation equals the vacation from lying and swindling and double-dealing and plotting that make up the routine of so many lives. As the two men and the baby carriage reached the far end of the walk, Bill said: “George, it’s a wonder you aren’t wheeling this cart up and down the main street.” “Too much noise and dust,” replied the governor. “Bad for the fat one.” He usually called his namesake “the fat one.”