t's true for the hobble holds good for the hoop.
Women will cease to single-foot and learn to undulate when they walk.
They'll widen the car platforms. They'll sit on top the Fifth Avenue
'buses, and you'll never give them a second thought."

"The things don't stay where they belong. I've seen 'em misbehave in
musical comedies," argued Buck miserably.

"That's where my patent comes in. The old hoop was cumbersome,
unwieldy, clumsy. The new skirt, by my patent featherboning process,
is made light, graceful, easily managed. T. A., I predict that by
midsummer a tight skirt will be as rare a sight as a full one was a
year ago."

"Nonsense!"

"We're not quarreling, are we?"

"Quarreling! I rather think not! A man can have his own opinion,
can't he?"

It appeared, however, that he could not. For when they had threshed it
out, inch by inch, as might two partners whose only bond was business,
it was Emma who won.

"Remember, I'm not convinced," Buck warned her; "I'm only beaten by
superior force. But I do believe in your woman's intuition--I'll say
that. It has never gone wrong. I'm banking on it.

"It's woman's intuition when we win," Emma observed, thoughtfully.
"When we lose it's a foolish, feminine notion."

There were to be no half-way measures. The skirt was to be the feature
of the spring line. Cutters and designers were one with Buck in
thinking it a freak garment. Emma reminded them that the same thing
had been said of the hobble on its appearance.

In February, Billy Spalding, veteran skirt-salesman, led a flying wedge
of six on a test-trip that included the Middle West and the Coast.
Their sample-trunks had to be rebuilt to accommodate the new model.
Spalding, shirt-sleeved, whistling dolorously, eyed each garment with a
look of bristling antagonism. Spalding sold skirts on commission.

Emma, surveying his labors, lifted a quizzical eyebrow.

"If you're going to sell that skirt as enthusiastically as you pack it,
you'd better stay here in New York and save the house traveling
expenses."

Spalding ceased to whistle. He held up a billowy sample and gazed at
it.

"Honestly, Mrs. Buck, you know I'd try to sell pretzels in London if
you asked me to. But do you really think any woman alive would be
caught wearing a garment like this in these days?"

"Not only do I think it, Billy; I'm certain of it. This new petticoat
makes me the Lincoln of the skirt trade. I'm literally freeing my