on the road as a traveling saleswoman for the T.A.  Buck Featherloom Petticoat Company.  This was what she had left in the morning.  To this she had come back at night.  As he stared ahead of him there rose before him a mental picture of her—­the brightness of her, the sunniness, the indomitable energy, and pluck, and courage.  With a sudden burst of new determination he wadded the towel into a moist ball, flung it at the washstand, seized hat, coat, and gloves, and was off down the hall.  So it was with something of his mother’s splendid courage in his heart, but with nothing of her canny knowledge in his head, Jock McChesney fared forth to do battle with the merciless god Business.

It was ten-thirty of a brilliant morning just two days later that a buoyant young figure swung into an elevator in the great office building that housed the Berg, Shriner Advertising Company.  Just one more grain of buoyant swing and the young man’s walk might have been termed a swagger.  As it was, his walrus bag just saved him.

Stepping out of the lift he walked, as from habit, to the little unlettered door which admitted employes to the big, bright, inner office.  But he did not use it.  Instead he turned suddenly and walked down the hall to the double door which led into the reception room.  He threw out his legs stiffly and came down rather flat-footed, the way George Cohan does when he’s pleased with himself in the second act.

“Hel-lo, Mack!” he called out jovially.

Mack, the usher, so called from his Machiavellian qualities, turned to survey the radiant young figure before him.

“Good morning, Mr. McChesney,” he made answer smoothly.  Mack never forgot himself.  His keen eye saw the little halo of self-satisfaction that hovered above Jock McChesney’s head.  “A successful trip, I see.”

Jock McChesney laughed a little, pleased, conscious laugh.  “Well, raw-thah!” he drawled, and opened the door leading into the main office.  He had been loath to lose one crumb of the savor of it.

  [Illustration:  “‘Well, raw-thah!’ he drawled”]

Still smiling, he walked to his own desk, with a nod here and there, dropped his bag, took off coat and hat, selected a cigarette, tapped it smartly, lighted it, and was off down the big room to the little cubby-hole at the other end.  But Sam Hupp’s plump, keen, good-humored face did not greet him as he entered.  The little room was deserted.  Frowning, Jock sank into the empty desk chair.  He cradled his head in his hands, tilted the chair, pursed his mouth over the slender white cylinder and squinted his eyes up toward the lazy blue spirals of smoke—­the very picture of content and satisfaction.

Hupp was in attending some conference in the Old Man’s office, of course.  He wished they’d hurry.  The business of the week was being boiled-down there.  Those conferences were great cauldrons into which the day’s business, or the week’s, was dumped, to be boiled, simmered, stirred, skimmed, cooled.  Jock had never been privileged to attend one of these meetings.  Perhaps by this time next week he might have a spoon in the stirring too—­