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“Pretty, isn’t she?” said Jock, appreciatively.

“Know who she is?”

“Well–I–she does look familiar but–“

“Oh, come now, quit your bluffing. If you’d ever met that dame you’d remember it. Her name’s McChesney–Emma McChesney, and she sells T. A. Buck’s Featherloom Petticoats. I’ll give her her dues; she’s the best little salesman on the road. I’ll bet that girl could sell a ruffled, accordion-plaited underskirt to a fat woman who was trying to reduce. She’s got the darndest way with her. And at that she’s straight, too.”

If Ed Meyers had not been gazing so intently into his hat, trying at the same time to look cherubically benign he might have seen a quick and painful scarlet sweep the face of the boy, coupled with a certain tense look of the muscles around the jaw.

“Well, now, look here,” he went on, still in a whisper. “We’re both skirt men, you and me. Everything’s fair in this game. Maybe you don’t know it, but when there’s a bunch of the boys waiting around to see the head of the store like this, and there happens to be a lady traveler in the crowd, why, it’s considered kind of a professional courtesy to let the lady have the first look-in. See? It ain’t so often that three people in the same line get together like this. She knows it, and she’s sitting on the edge of her chair, waiting to bolt when that door opens, even if she does act like she was hanging on the words of that lady clerk there. The minute it does open a crack she’ll jump up and give me a fleeting, grateful smile, and sail in and cop a fat order away from the old man and his skirt buyer. I’m wise. Say, he may be an oyster, but he knows a pretty woman when he sees one. By the time she’s through with him he’ll have enough petticoats on hand to last him from now until Turkey goes suffrage. Get me?”

“I get you,” answered Jock.

“I say, this is business, and good manners be hanged. When a woman breaks into a man’s game like this, let her take her chances like a man. Ain’t that straight?”

“You’ve said something,” agreed Jock.

“Now, look here, kid. When that door opens I get up. See? And shoot straight for the old man’s office. See? Like a duck. See? Say, I may be fat, kid, but I’m what they call light on my feet, and when I see an order getting away from me I can be so fleet that I have Diana looking like old Weston doing a stretch of muddy country road in a coast to coast hike. See? Now you help me out on this and I’ll see that you don’t suffer for it. I’ll stick in a good word for you, believe me. You take the word of an old stager like me and you won’t go far–“

The door opened. Simultaneously three figures sprang into action. Jock had the seat nearest the door. With marvelous clumsiness he managed to place himself in Ed Meyers’ path, then reddened, began an apology, stepped on both of Ed’s feet, jabbed his elbow into his stomach, and dropped his hat. A second later the door of old Sulzberg’s private office closed upon Emma McChesney’s smart, erect, confident figure.

Now, Ed Meyers’ hands were peculiar hands for a fat man. They were tapering, slender, delicate, blue-veined, temperamental hands. At this moment, despite his purpling face, and his staring eyes, they were the most noticeable thing about him. His fingers clawed the empty air, quivering, vibrant, as though poised to clutch at Jock’s throat.

Then words came. They spluttered from his lips. They popped like corn kernels in the heat of his wrath; they tripped over each other; they exploded.

“You darned kid, you!” he began, with fascinating fluency. “You thousand-legged, double-jointed, ox-footed truck horse. Come on out of here and I’ll lick the shine off your shoes, you blue-eyed babe, you! What did you get up for, huh? What did you think this was going to be –a flag drill?”

With a whoop of pure joy Jock McChesney turned and fled.

They dined together at one o’clock, Emma McChesney and her son Jock. Suddenly Jock stopped eating. His eyes were on the door. “There’s that fathead now,” he said, excitedly. “The nerve of him! He’s coming over here.”