d ten-cent
stores, and banks with Doric columns, and paved streets.

After he had registered at the hotel, and as he was cleaning up a
bit, he passed an amused eye over the bare, ugly, fusty little
hotel bedroom. But somehow, as he stood in the middle of the room,
a graceful, pleasing figure of youth and confidence, the smile
faded. Towel in hand he surveyed the barrenness of it. He stared
at the impossible wall paper, at the battered furniture, the worn
carpet. He sniffed the stuffy smell of--what was that smell,
anyhow?--straw, and matting, and dust, and the ghost-odor of
hundreds who had occupied the room before him. It came over him
with something of a shock that this same sort of room had been his
mother's only home in the ten years she had spent on the road as a
traveling saleswoman for the T.A. Buck Featherloom Petticoat
Company. This was what she had left in the morning. To this she
had come back at night. As he stared ahead of him there rose
before him a mental picture of her--the brightness of her, the
sunniness, the indomitable energy, and pluck, and courage. With a
sudden burst of new determination he wadded the towel into a moist
ball, flung it at the washstand, seized hat, coat, and gloves, and
was off down the hall. So it was with something of his mother's
splendid courage in his heart, but with nothing of her canny
knowledge in his head, Jock McChesney fared forth to do battle
with the merciless god Business.

It was ten-thirty of a brilliant morning just two days later that
a buoyant young figure swung into an elevator in the great office
building that housed the Berg, Shriner Advertising Company. Just
one more grain of buoyant swing and the young man's walk might
have been termed a swagger. As it was, his walrus bag just saved
him.

Stepping out of the lift he walked, as from habit, to the little
unlettered door which admitted employes to the big, bright, inner
office. But he did not use it. Instead he turned suddenly and
walked down the hall to the double door which led into the
reception room. He threw out his legs stiffly and came down rather
flat-footed, the way George Cohan does when he's pleased with
himself in the second act.

"Hel-lo, Mack!" he called out jovially.

Mack, the usher, so called from his Machiavellian qualities,
turned to survey the radiant young figure before him.

"Good morning, Mr. McChesney," he made answer smoothly. Mack
never forgot himself. His keen eye saw the li