looked about the snug cabin, her eyes suddenly misty. Buck poked
his head in at the door.

"Come on up on deck, Emma; I've only a few minutes left."

She snatched a pink rose from the box, and together they went on deck.

"Just ten minutes," said Buck. He was looking down at her. "Remember,
Emma, nothing that concerns the firm's business, however big, is half
as important as the things that concern you personally, however small.
I realize what this trip will mean to us, if it pans, and if you can
beat Meyers to it. But if anything should happen to you, why----"

"Nothing's going to happen, T. A., except that I'll probably come home
with my complexion ruined. I'll feel a great deal more at home talking
pidgin-English to Senor Alvarez in Buenos Aires than you will talking
Featherlooms to Miss Skirt-Buyer in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. But remember
this, T. A.: When you get to know--really to know--the Sadie Harrises
and the Sammy Blochs and the Ella Sweeneys of this world, you've
learned just about all there is to know about human beings. Quick--the
gangplank! Goodby, T. A."

The dock reached, he gazed up at her as she leaned far over the
railing. He made a megaphone of his hands.

"I feel like an old maid who's staying home with her knitting," he
called.

The boat began to move. Emma McChesney passed a quick hand over her
eyes.

"Don't drop any stitches, T. A." With unerring aim she flung the big
pink rose straight at him.

She went about arranging her affairs on the boat like the business
woman that she was. First she made her cabin shipshape. She placed
nearest at hand the books on South America, and the Spanish-American
pocket interpreter. She located her deck chair, and her seat in the
dining-room. Then, quietly, unobtrusively, and guided by those years
spent in meeting men and women face to face in business, she took
thorough, conscientious mental stock of those others who were to be her
fellow travelers for twenty-three days.

For the most part, the first-class passengers were men. There were
American business men--salesmen, some of them, promoters others, or
representatives of big syndicates shrewd, alert, well dressed, smooth
shaven. Emma McChesney knew that she would gain valuable information
from many of them before the trip was over. She sighed a little
regretfully as she thought of those smoking-room talks--those intimate,
tobacco-mellowed business talks from which she would be barred by h