lips. "I didn't say it was bad, did I?
That is, not exactly bad, I suppose."

T.A. Buck ran a frenzied hand over his head. "My dear child,"
with careful politeness, "will you please try to be sane? I find
you sitting at your desk, staring into space, your face white as a
ghost's, your whole appearance that of a person who has received a
death-blow. And then you say, 'Not exactly bad'!"

"It's this," explained Emma McChesney in a hollow tone: "The Berg,
Shriner Advertising Company has appointed Jock manager of their
new Western branch. They're opening offices in Chicago in March."
Her lower lip quivered. She caught it sharply between her teeth.

For one surprised moment T.A. Buck stared in silence. Then a roar
broke from him. "Not exactly bad!" he boomed between laughs. "Not
exactly b--Not ex_act_ly, eh?" Then he was off again.

Mrs. McChesney surveyed him in hurt and dignified silence.
Then--"Well, really, T.A., don't mind me. What you find so
exquisitely funny--"

"That's the funniest part of it! That you, of all people,
shouldn't see the joke. Not exactly bad!" He wiped his eyes. "Why,
do you mean to tell me that because your young cub of a son, by a
heaven-sent stroke of good fortune, has landed a job that men
twice his age would give their eyeteeth to get, I find you sitting
at the telephone looking as if he had run off with Annie the cook,
or had had a leg cut off!"

"I suppose it is funny. Only, the joke's on me. That's why I can't
see it. It means that I'm losing him."

"That's the first selfish word I've ever heard you utter."

"Oh, don't think I'm not happy at his success. Happy! Haven't I
hoped for it, and worked for it, and prayed for it! Haven't I
saved for it, and skimped for it! How do you think I could have
stood those years on the road if I hadn't kept up courage with the
thought that it was all for him? Don't I know how narrowly Jock
escaped being the wrong kind! I'm his mother, but I'm not quite
blind. I know he had the making of a first-class cad. I've seen
him start off in the wrong direction a hundred times."

"If he has turned out a success, it's because you've steered him
right. I've watched you make him over. And now, when his big
chance has come, you--"

"I don't expect you to understand," interrupted Emma McChesney a
little wearily. "I know it sounds crazy and unreasonable. There's
only one sort of human being who could understand what I mean.
That's a woman with a son." She laugh