ded calmly.

"I don't know how this trip of yours is going to affect the firm's
business, T. A. But it's going to be a liberal education for you.
You'll find that you'll need that little book a good many times before
you're through. And while you're following its advice, do this: forget
that your name is Buck, except for business purposes; forget that your
family has always lived in a brownstone mausoleum in Seventy-second
street; forget that you like your chops done just so, and your wine at
such-and-such a temperature; get close to your trade. They're an
awfully human lot, those Middle Western buyers. Don't chuck them under
the chin, but smile on 'em. And you've got a lovely smile, T. A."

Buck looked up from the little leather book. And, as he gazed at Emma
McChesney, the smile appeared and justified its praise.

"I'll have this to comfort me, anyway, Emma. I'll know that while I'm
smirking on the sprightly Miss Sweeney, your face will be undergoing
various agonizing twists in the effort to make American prices
understood by an Argentine who can't speak anything but Spanish."

"Maybe I am short on Spanish, but I'm long on Featherlooms. I may not
know a senora from a chili con carne, but I know Featherlooms from the
waistband to the hem." She leaned forward, dimpling like fourteen
instead of forty. "And you've noticed--haven't you, T. A.?--that I've
got an expressive countenance."

Buck leaned forward, too. His smile was almost gone.

"I've noticed a lot of things, Emma McChesney. And if you persist in
deviling me for one more minute, I'm going to mention a few."

Emma McChesney surveyed her cleared desk, locked the top drawer with a
snap, and stood up.

"If you do I'll miss my boat. Just time to make Brooklyn. Suppose you
write 'em."

That Ed Meyers might know nothing of her sudden plans, she had kept the
trip secret. Besides Buck and the office staff, her son Jock was the
only one who knew. But she found her cabin stocked like a prima
donna's on a farewell tour. There were boxes of flowers, a package of
books, baskets of fruit, piles of magazines, even a neat little sheaf
of telegrams, one from the faithful bookkeeper, one from the workroom
foreman, two from salesmen long in the firm's employ, two from Jock in
Chicago. She read them, her face glowing. He and Buck had vied with
each other in supplying her with luxuries that would make pleasanter
the twenty-three days of her voyage.

She