ve made me look
like--like a shoe-string peddler."

Buck put out a hand suddenly.

"Don't say that, Emma. I--somehow it takes away all the pleasure."

"It's true. And now that I know, it explains a lot of things that I've
been puzzling about in the last twenty-four hours."

"What kind of things?"

"The way you look and act and think. The way you carry your head. The
way you sit in a chair. The very words you use, your gestures, your
intonations. They're different."

T. A. Buck, busy with his cigar, laughed a little self-consciously.

"Oh, nonsense!" he said. "You're imagining things."

Which remark, while not a particularly happy one, certainly was not in
itself so unfortunate as to explain why Mrs. McChesney should have
turned rather suddenly and bolted into her own office across the hall
and closed the door behind her.

T. A. Buck, quite cool and unruffled, viewed her sudden departure
quizzically. Then he took his cigar from his mouth and stood eying it
a moment with more attention, perhaps, than it deserved, in spite of
its fine aroma. When he put it back between his lips and sat down at
his desk once more he was smiling ever so slightly.

Then began a new order of things in the offices of the T. A. Buck
Featherloom Petticoat Company. Feet that once had turned quite as a
matter of course toward the door marked "MRS. MCCHESNEY," now took the
direction of the door opposite--and that door bore the name of Buck.
Those four months of Mrs. McChesney's absence had put her partner to
the test. That acid test had washed away the accumulated dross of
years and revealed the precious metal beneath. T. A. Buck had proved
to be his father's son.

If Mrs. McChesney noticed that the head office had miraculously moved
across the hall, if her sharp ears marked that the many feet that once
had paused at her door now stopped at the door opposite, if she
realized that instead of, "I'd like your opinion on this, Mrs.
McChesney," she often heard the new, "I'll ask Mr. Buck," she did not
show it by word or sign.

The first of October found buyers still flocking into New York from
every State in the country. Shrewd men and women, these--bargain
hunters on a grand scale. Armed with the long spoon of business
knowledge, they came to skim the cream from factory and workroom
products set forth for their inspection.

For years, it had been Emma McChesney's quiet boast that of those whose
business brought them to the