There arose in Jock McChesney’s mind that instinct of the man in his hour of triumph—­the desire to tell a woman of his greatness.  He paused a second outside Sam Hupp’s office, turned, and walked quickly down the length of the great central room.  He stopped before a little glass door at the end, tapped lightly, and entered.

Grace Galt, copy-writer, looked up, frowning a little.  Then she smiled.  Miss Galt had a complete layout on the desk before her—­scrap books, cuts, copy, magazines.  There was a little smudge on the end of her nose.  Grace Galt was writing about magnetos.  She was writing about magnetos in a way to make you want to drop your customer, or your ironing, or your game, and go downtown and buy that particular kind of magneto at once.  Which is the secretest part of the wizardry of advertising copy.  To look at Grace Galt you would have thought that she should have been writing about the rose-tinted jars in Jock McChesney’s hands instead of about such things as ignition, and insulation, and ball bearings, and induction windings.  But it was Grace Galt’s gift that she could take just such hard, dry, technical facts and weave them into a story that you followed to the end.  She could make you see the romance in condensers and transformers.  She had the power that caused the reader to lose himself in the charm of magnetic poles, and ball bearings, and high-tension sparks.

“Just dropped in to say good-by,” said Jock, very casually.  “Going to run up-state to see the Athena Company—­toilette specialties, you know.  It ought to be a big account.”

“Athena?” Grace Galt regarded him absently, her mind still on her work.  Then her eyes cleared.  “You mean at Tonawanda?  And they’re sending you!  Well!” She put out a congratulatory hand.  Jock gripped it gratefully.

“Not so bad, eh?” he boasted.

“Bad!” echoed Grace Galt.  Her face became serious.  “Do you realize that there are men in this office who have been here for five years, six years, or even more, and who have never been given a chance to do anything but stenography, or perhaps some private secretarying?”

“I know it,” agreed Jock.  But there was no humbleness in his tone.  He radiated self-satisfaction.  He seemed to grow and expand before her eyes.  A little shadow of doubt crept across Grace Galt’s expression of friendly interest.

“Are you scared,” she asked; “just the least bit?”

Jock flushed a little.  “Well,” he confessed ruefully, “I don’t mind telling you I am—­a little.”

“Good!”

“Good?”

“Yes.  The head of that concern is a woman.  That’s one reason why they didn’t send me, I suppose.  I—­I’d like to say something, if you don’t mind.”

“Anything you like,” said Jock graciously.

“Well, then, don’t be afraid of being embarrassed and fussed.  If you blush and stammer a little, she’ll like it.  Play up the coy stuff.”