ll do you good to watch how
the overripe orders just drop, ker-plunk, into my lap."

Maybe you know Sulzberg & Stein's big store? No? That's because you've
always lived in the city. Old Sulzberg sends his buyers to the New York
market twice a year, and they need two floor managers on the main floor
now. The money those people spend for red and green decorations at
Christmas time, apple-blossoms and pink crepe paper shades in the
spring, must be something awful. Young Stein goes to Chicago to have his
clothes made, and old Sulzberg likes to keep the traveling men waiting
in the little ante-room outside his private office.

Jock McChesney finished his huge breakfast, strolled over to Sulzberg &
Stein's, and inquired his way to the office only to find that his mother
was not yet there. There were three men in the little waiting-room. One
of them was Fat Ed Meyers. His huge bulk overflowed the spindle-legged
chair on which he sat. His brown derby was in his hands. His eyes were
on the closed door at the other side of the room. So were the eyes of
the other two travelers. Jock took a vacant seat next to Fat Ed Meyers
so that he might, in his mind's eye, pick out a particularly choice spot
upon which his hard young fist might land--if only he had the chance.
Breaking up a man's sleep like that, the great big overgrown mutt!

"What's your line?" said Ed Meyers, suddenly turning toward Jock.

Prompted by some imp--"Skirts," answered Jock. "Ladies' petticoats."
("As if men ever wore 'em!" he giggled inwardly.)

Ed Meyers shifted around in his chair so that he might better stare at
this new foe in the field. His little red mouth was open ludicrously.

"Who're you out for?" he demanded next.

There was a look of Emma McChesney on Jock's face. "Why--er--the Union
Underskirt and Hosiery Company of Chicago. New concern."

"Must be," ruminated Ed Meyers. "I never heard of 'em, and I know 'em
all. You're starting in young, ain't you, kid! Well, it'll never hurt
you. You'll learn something new every day. Now me, I----"

In breezed Emma McChesney. Her quick glance rested immediately upon
Meyers and the boy. And in that moment some instinct prompted Jock
McChesney to shake his head, ever so slightly, and assume a blankness of
expression. And Emma McChesney, with that shrewdness which had made her
one of the best salesmen on the road, saw, and miraculously understood.

"How do, Mrs. McChesney," grinned Fat Ed Meyers. "You see I be