“T.A.,” said Emma McChesney solemnly, “Jock will be drawing a man-size salary now.  Something tells me I’ll be a grandmother in another two years.  Girls aren’t letting men like Jock run around loose.  He’ll be gobbled up.  Just you wait.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” drawled Buck mischievously.  “You’ve just said he’s a headstrong young cub.  He strikes me as the kind who’d raise the dickens if his three-minute egg happened to be five seconds overtime.”

Emma McChesney swung around in her chair.  “Look here, T.A.  As business partners we’ve quarreled about everything from silk samples to traveling men, and as friends we’ve wrangled on every subject from weather to war.  I’ve allowed you to criticise my soul theories, and my new spring hat.  But understand that I’m the only living person who has the right to villify my son, Jock McChesney.”

The telephone buzzed a punctuation to this period.

“Baumgartner?” inquired Buck humbly.

She listened a moment, then, over her shoulder, “Baumgartner,”—­grimly, her hand covering the mouthpiece—­“and if he thinks that he can work off a lot of last year’s silk swatches on—­Hello!  Yes, Mrs. McChesney talking.  Look here, Mr. Baumgartner—­”

And for the time being Emma McChesney, mother, was relegated to the background, while Emma McChesney, secretary of the T.A.  Buck Featherloom Petticoat Company, held the stage.

Having said that she would be home at five-thirty.  Mrs. McChesney was home at five-thirty, being that kind of a person.  Jock came in at six, breathless, bright-eyed, eager, and late, being that kind of a person.

He found his mother on the floor before the chiffonier in his bedroom, surrounded by piles of pajamas, socks, shirts and collars.

  [Illustration:  “He found his mother on the floor ... surrounded
  by piles of pajamas, socks, shirts and collars”]

He swooped down upon her from the doorway.  “What do you think of your blue-eyed boy!  Poor, eh?”

Emma McChesney looked up absently.  “Jock, these medium-weights of yours didn’t wear at all, and you paid five dollars for them.”

“Medium-weights!  What in—­”

“You’ve enough silk socks to last you the rest of your natural life.  Handkerchiefs, too.  But you’ll need pajamas.”

Jock stooped, gathered up an armful of miscellaneous undergarments and tossed them into an open drawer.  Then he shut the drawer with a bang, reached over, grasped his mother firmly under the arms and brought her to her feet with a swing.

“We will now consider the question of summer underwear ended.  Would it bore you too much to touch lightly on the subject of your son’s future?”

Emma McChesney, tall, straight, handsome, looked up at her son, taller, straighter, handsomer.  Then she took him by the coat lapels and hugged him.

“You were so bursting with your own glory that I couldn’t resist teasing you.  Besides, I had to do something to keep my mind off—­off—­”