“True.  But perhaps what Jock said when he walked with us to the elevator was pretty nearly right.  You know he said we were criticising their copy the way a plumber would criticise the Parthenon—­so busy finding fault with the lack of drains that we failed to see the beauty of the architecture.”

“T.A.,” said Emma McChesney solemnly, “T.A., we’re getting old.”

“Old!  You!  I!  Ha!”

“You may ‘Ha!’ all you like.  But do you know what they thought of us in there?  They thought we were a couple of fogies, and they humored us, that’s what they did.  I’ll tell you, T.A., when the time comes for me to give Jock up to some little pink-faced girl I’ll do it, and smile if it kills me.  But to hand my Featherlooms over to a lot of cold-blooded experts who—­well—­” she paused, biting her lip.

“We’ll see, Emma; we’ll see.”

They did see.  The Featherloom petticoat campaign was launched with a great splash.  It sailed serenely into the sea of national business.  Then suddenly something seemed to go wrong with its engines.  It began to wobble and showed a decided list to port.  Jock, who at the beginning was so puffed with pride that his gold fountain pen threatened to burst the confines of his very modishly tight vest, lost two degrees of pompousness a day, and his attitude toward his unreproachful mother was almost humble.

A dozen times a week T.A.  Buck would stroll casually into Mrs. McChesney’s office.  “Think it’s going to take hold?” he would ask.  “Our men say the dealers have laid in, but the public doesn’t seem to be tearing itself limb from limb to get to our stuff.”

Emma McChesney would smile, and shrug noncommittal shoulders.

When it became very painfully apparent that it wasn’t “taking hold,” T.A.  Buck, after asking the same question, now worn and frayed with asking, broke out, crossly: 

“Well, really, I don’t mind the shrug, but I do wish you wouldn’t smile.  After all, you know, this campaign is costing us money—­real money, and large chunks of it.  It’s very evident that we shouldn’t have tried to make a national campaign of this thing.”

Whereupon Mrs. McChesney’s smile grew into a laugh.  “Forgive me, T.A.  I’m not laughing at you.  I’m laughing because—­well, I can’t tell you why.  It’s a woman’s reason, and you wouldn’t think it a reason at all.  For that matter, I suppose it isn’t, but—­Anyway, I’ve got something to tell you.  The fault of this campaign has been the copy.  It was perfectly good advertising, but it left the public cold.  When they read those ads they might have been impressed with the charm of the garment, but it didn’t fill their breasts with any wild longing to possess one.  It didn’t make the women feel unhappy until they had one of those skirts hanging on the third hook in their closet.  The only kind of advertising that is advertising is the kind that makes the reader say, ’I’ll have one of those.’”