“All right.  Here it is.  And don’t blame me if it sounds like cheap melodrama.  This stuff,” and he waved a hand toward the paper-laden table, “is an advertising campaign plan for the Griebler Gum Company, of St. Louis.  Oh, don’t look impressed.  The office hasn’t handed me any such commission.  I just got the idea like a flash, and I’ve been working it out for the last two weeks.  It worked itself out, almost—­the way a really scorching idea does, sometimes.  This Griebler has been advertising for years.  You know the Griebler gum.  But it hasn’t been the right sort of advertising.  Old Griebler, the original gum man, had fogy notions about advertising, and as long as he lived they had to keep it down.  He died a few months ago—­you must have read of it.  Left a regular mint.  Ben Griebler, the oldest son, started right in to clean out the cobwebs.  Of course the advertising end of it has come in for its share of the soap and water.  He wants to make a clean sweep of it.  Every advertising firm in the country has been angling for the contract.  It’s going to be a real one.  Two-thirds of the crowd have submitted plans.  And that’s just where my kick comes in.  The Berg, Shriner Company makes it a rule never to submit advance plans.”

“Excuse me if I seem a trifle rude,” interrupted Mrs. McChesney, “but I’d like to know where you think you’ve been wronged in this.”

“Right here!” replied Jock, and he slapped his pocket, “and here,” he pointed to his head.  “Two spots so vital that they make old Achilles’s heel seem armor-plated.  Ben Griebler is one of the show-me kind.  He wants value received for money expended, and while everybody knows that he has a loving eye on the Berg, Shriner crowd, he won’t sign a thing until he knows what he’s getting.  A firm’s record, standing, staff, equipment, mean nothing to him.”

“But, Jock, I still don’t see—­”

Jock gathered up a sheaf of loose papers and brandished them in the air.  “This is where I come in.  I’ve got a plan here that will fetch this Griebler person.  Oh, I’m not dreaming.  I outlined it for Sam Hupp, and he was crazy about it.  Sam Hupp had some sort of plan outlined himself.  But he said this made his sound as dry as cigars in Denver.  And you know yourself that Sam Hupp’s copy is so brilliant that he could sell brewery advertising to a temperance magazine.”

Emma McChesney stood up.  She looked a little impatient, and a trifle puzzled.  “But why all this talk!  I don’t get you.  Take your plan to Mr. Berg.  If it’s what you think it is he’ll see it quicker than any other human being, and he’ll probably fall on your neck and invest you in royal robes and give you a mahogany desk all your own.”

“Oh, what’s the good!” retorted Jock disgustedly.  “This Griebler has an appointment at the office to-morrow.  He’ll be closeted with the Old Man.  They’ll call in Hupp.  But never a plan will they reveal.  It’s against their code of ethics.  Ethics!  I’m sick of the word.  I suppose you’d say I’m lucky to be associated with a firm like that, and I suppose I am.  But I wish in the name of all the gods of Business that they weren’t so bloomin’ conservative.  Ethics!  They’re all balled up in ’em, like Henry James in his style.”