“‘Sure,’ says I.  ’And I’ve learned to let the other fellow think your argument’s his own.  He likes it.  I’ve learned that the surest kind of copy is the slow, insidious kind, like the Featherloom Petticoat Company’s campaign.  That was an ideal campaign because it didn’t urge and insist that the public buy Featherlooms.  It just eased the idea to them.  It started by sketching a history of the petticoat, beginning with Eve’s fig leaf and working up.  Before they knew it they were interested.’

“‘That so?  That campaign was your mother’s idea, McChesney.’  You know, Mother, he thinks you’re a wonder.”

“So I am,” agreed Emma McChesney calmly.  “Go on.”

“Well, I went on.  I told him that I’d learned to stand so that the light wouldn’t shine in my client’s eyes when I was talking to him.  I lost a big order once because the glare from the window irritated the man I was talking to.  I told Berg all the tricks I’d learned, and some I hadn’t thought of till that minute.  Berg put in a word now and then.  I thought he was sort of guying me, as he sometimes does—­not unkindly, you know, but in that quiet way he has.  Finally I stopped for breath, or something, and he said: 

“’Now let me talk a minute, McChesney.  Anybody can teach you the essentials of the advertising business, if you’ve any advertising instinct in you.  But it’s what you pick up on the side, by your own efforts and out of your own experience, that lifts you out of the scrub class.  Now I don’t think you’re an ideal advertising man by any means, McChesney.  You’re shy on training and experience, and you’ve just begun to acquire that golden quality known as balance.  I could name a hundred men that are better all-around advertising men than you will ever be.  Those men have advertising ability that glows steadily and evenly, like a well-banked fire.  But you’ve got the kind of ability that flares up, dies down, flares up.  But every flare is a real blaze that lights things red while it lasts, and sends a new glow through the veins of business.  You’ve got personality, and youth, and enthusiasm, and a precious spark of the real thing known as advertising genius.  There’s no describing it.  You know what I mean.  Also, you know enough about actual advertising not to run an ad for a five-thousand-dollar motor car in the “Police Gazette.”  All of which leads up to this question:  How would you like to buy your neckties in Chicago, McChesney?’

“‘Chicago!’ I blurted.

“’We’ve taken a suite of offices in the new Lakeview Building on Michigan Avenue.  Would you like your office done in mahogany or oak?’”

Jock came to a full stop before his mother.  His cheeks were scarlet.  Hers were pale.  He was breathing quickly.  She was very quiet.  His eyes glowed.  So did hers, but the glow was dimmed by a mist.

“Mahogany’s richer, but make it oak, son.  It doesn’t show finger-marks so.”  Then, quite suddenly, she stood up, shaking a little, and buried her face in the boy’s shoulder.