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“Do you mean to tell me,” burst from the long-pent T. A. Buck, “that you wear ’em too?”

“Crazy about ’em. Miss La Noyes, will you just slip on your street skirt, please?”

She waited in silence until the demure Miss La Noyes reappeared. A narrow, straight-hanging, wrinkleless cloth skirt covered the much discussed under-garment. “Turn slowly, please. Thanks. You see, Mr. Buck? Not a wrinkle. No bunchiness. No lumps. No crawling up about the knees. Nothing but ease, and comfort, and trim good looks.”

T. A. Buck passed his hand over his head in a dazed, helpless gesture. There was something pathetic in his utter bewilderment and helplessness in contrast with Emma McChesney’s breezy self-confidence, and the show-girl’s cool poise and unconcern.

“Wait a minute,” he murmured, almost pleadingly. “Let me ask a couple of questions, will you?”

“Questions? A hundred. That proves you’re interested.”

“Well, then, let me ask this young lady the first one. Miss–er–La Noyes, do you honestly and truly like this garment? Would you buy one if you saw it in a shop window?”

Miss La Noyes’ answer came trippingly and without hesitation. She did not even have to feel of her back hair first.

“Say, I’d go without my lunch for a week to get it. Mrs. McChesney says I can have this pair. I can’t wait till our prima donna sees ’em. She’ll hate me till she’s got a dozen like ’em.”

“Next!” urged Mrs. McChesney, pleasantly.

But T. A. Buck shook his head. “That’s all. Only–“

Emma McChesney patted Miss La Noyes lightly on the shoulder, and smiled dazzlingly upon her. “Run along, little girl. You’ve done beautifully. And many thanks.”

Miss La Noyes, appearing in another moment dressed for the street, stopped at the door to bestow a frankly admiring smile upon the abstracted president of the company, and a grateful one upon its pink- cheeked secretary.

“Hope you’ll come and see our show some evening. You won’t know me at first, because I wear a blond wig in the first scene. Third from the left, front row.” And to Mrs. McChesney: “I cer’nly did hate to get up so early this morning, but after you’re up it ain’t so fierce. And it cer’nly was easy money. Thanks.”

Emma McChesney glanced quickly at T. A., saw that he was pliant enough for the molding process, and deftly began to shape, and bend, and smooth and pat.

“Let’s sit down, and unravel the kinks in our ne
rves. Now, if you do favor this new plan–oh, I mean after you’ve given it consideration, and all that! Yes, indeed. But if you do, I think it would be good policy to start the game in–say–Cleveland. The Kaufman-Oster Company of Cleveland have a big, snappy, up-to-the-minute store. We’ll get them to send out announcement cards. Something neat and flattering- looking. See? Little stage all framed up. Scene set to show a bedroom or boudoir. Then, thin girls, plump girls, short girls, high girls. They’ll go through all the paces. We won’t only show the knickerbockers: we demonstrate how the ordinary petticoat bunches and crawls up under the heavy plush and velvet top skirt. We’ll show ’em in street clothes, evening clothes, afternoon frocks. Each one in a different shade of satin knicker. And silk stockings and cunning little slippers to match. The store will stand for that. It’s a big ad for them, too.”

Emma McChesney’s hair was slightly tousled. Her cheeks were carmine. Her eyes glowed.

“Don’t you see! Don’t you get it! Can’t you feel how the thing’s going to take hold?”

“By Gad!” burst from T. A. Buck, “I’m darned if I don’t believe you’re right–almost–But are you sure that you believe–“

Emma McChesney brought one little white fist down into the palm of the other hand. “Sure? Why, I’m so sure that when I shut my eyes I can see T. A. Senior sitting over there in that chair, tapping the side of his nose with the edge of his tortoise-shell-rimmed glasses, and nodding his head, with his features all screwed up like a blessed old gargoyle, the way he always did when something tickled him. That’s how sure I am.”

T. A. Buck stood up abruptly. He shrugged his shoulders. His face looked strangely white and drawn. “I’ll leave it to you. I’ll do my share of the work. But I’m not more than half convinced, remember.”