t in a jiffy, Son, because breakfast will be
ready in ten minutes. I can tell by the way Annie's crashing the
cups. So step lively if you want to pay your lovely mother's
subway fare."

Ten minutes later the slim young figure, in its English-fitting
black and white, sat opposite Emma McChesney at the breakfast
table and between excited gulps of coffee outlined a meteoric
career in his chosen field. And the more he talked and the rosier
his figures of speech became, the more silent and thoughtful fell
his mother. She wondered if five o'clock would find a droop to the
set of those young shoulders; if the springy young legs in their
absurdly scant modish trousers would have lost some of their
elasticity; if the buoyant step in the flat-heeled shoes would not
drag a little. Thirteen years of business experience had taught
her to swallow smilingly the bitter pill of rebuff. But this boy
was to experience his first dose to-day. She felt again that
sensation of almost physical nausea--that sickness of heart and
spirit which had come over her when she had met her first sneer
and intolerant shrug. It had been her maiden trip on the road for
the T.A. Buck Featherloom Petticoat Company. She was secretary of
that company now, and moving spirit in its policy. But the wound
of that first insult still ached. A word from her would have
placed the boy and saved him from curt refusals. She withheld that
word. He must fight his fight alone.

"I want to write the kind of ad," Jock was saying excitedly, "that
you see 'em staring at in the subways, and street cars and
L-trains. I want to sit across the aisle and watch their up-turned
faces staring at that oblong, and reading it aloud to each other."

"Isn't that an awfully obvious necktie you're wearing, Jock?"
inquired his mother irrelevantly.

"This? You ought to see some of them. This is a Quaker stock in
comparison." He glanced down complacently at the vivid-hued silken
scarf that the season's mode demanded. Immediately he was off
again. "And the first thing you know, Mrs. McChesney, ma'am, we'll
have a motor truck backing up at the door once a month and six
strong men carrying my salary to the freight elevator in sacks."

Emma McChesney buttered her bit of toast, then looked up to remark
quietly:

"Hadn't you better qualify for the trial heats, Jock, before you
jump into the finals?"

"Trial heats!" sneered Jock. "They're poky. I want real money.
Now! It isn't enough to be ju