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Jock regarded the mercifully faded roses in the carpet. His lower lip came forward again.

“Oh, a fellow can’t always be tied to his mother’s apron strings. I like to have a little fling myself. I know a lot of fellows here. They are frat brothers. And anyway, I needed some new clothes.”

For one long moment Emma McChesney stared, in silence. Then: “Of course,” she began, slowly, “I knew you were seventeen years old. I’ve even bragged about it. I’ve done more than that–I’ve gloried in it. But somehow, whenever I thought of you in my heart–and that was a great deal of the time it was as though you still were a little tyke in knee-pants, with your cap on the back of your head, and a chunk of apple bulging your cheek. Jock, I’ve been earning close to six thousand a year since I put in that side line of garters. Just how much spending money have I been providing you with?”

Jock twirled a coat button uncomfortably “Well, quite a lot. But a fellow’s got to have money to keep up appearances. A lot of the fellows in my crowd have more than I. There are clothes, and tobacco, and then flowers and cabs for the skirts–girls, I mean, and–“

“Kid,” impressively, “I want you to sit down over there in that plush chair–the red one, with the lumps in the back. I want you to be uncomfortable. From where I am sitting I can see that in you there is the making of a first-class cad. That’s no pleasant thing for a mother to realize. Now don’t interrupt me. I’m going to be chairman, speaker, program, and ways-and-means committee of this meeting. Jock, I got my divorce from your father ten years ago. Now, I’m not going to say anything about him. Just this one thing. You’re not going to follow in his footsteps, Kid. Not if I have to take you to pieces like a nickel watch and put you all together again. You’re Emma McChesney’s son, and ten years from now I intend to be able to brag about it, or I’ll want to know the reason why–and it’ll have to be a blamed good reason.”

“I’d like to know what I’ve done!” blurted the boy. “Just because I happened to come here a few hours before you expected me, and just because you saw me talking to a girl! Why–“

“It isn’t what you’ve done. It’s what those things stand for. I’ve been at fault. But I’m willing to admit it. Your mother is a working woman, Jock. You don’t like that idea, do you? But you don’t mind spending the money that the working woman provides you with, do you? I’m earning a man’s salary. But Jock, you oughtn’t to be willing to live on it.

“What do you want me to do?” demanded Jock. “I’m not out of high school yet. Other fellows whose fathers aren’t earning as much–“

“Fathers,” interrupted Emma McChesney. “There you are. Jock, I don’t have to make the distinction for you. You’re sufficiently my son to know it, in your heart. I had planned to give you a college education, if you showed yourself deserving. I don’t believe in sending a boy in your position to college unless he shows some special leaning toward a profession.”

“Mother, you know how wild I am about machines, and motors, and engineering, and all that goes with it. Why I’d work–“

“You’ll have to, Jock. That’s the only thing that will make a man of you. I’ve started you wrong, but it isn’t too late yet. It’s all very well for boys with rich fathers to run to clothes, and city jaunts, and ‘chickens,’ and cabs and flowers. Your mother is working tooth and nail to earn her six thousand, and when you realize just what it means for a woman to battle against men in a man’s game, you’ll stop being a spender, and become an earner–because you’ll want to. I’ll tell you what I’m going to do, Kid. I’m going to take you on the road with me for two weeks. You’ll learn so many things that at the end of that time the sides of your head will be bulging.”