to reach that great, big, solid, safe, spot-cash mass known as the
middle class. Of course my copy may be wrong. It may not go, after
all, but--"

But it did go. It didn't go with a rush, or a bang. It went
slowly, surely, hand over hand, but it went, and it kept on going.
And watching it climb and take hold there came back to Emma
McChesney's eye the old sparkle, to her step the old buoyancy, to
her voice the old delightful ring. And now, when T.A. Buck
strolled into her office of a morning, with his, "It's taking
hold, Mrs. Mack," she would dimple like a girl as she laughed back
at him--

"With a grip that won't let go."

"It looks very much as though we were going to be millionaires in
our old age, you and I?" went on Buck.

Emma McChesney opened her eyes wide.

"Old!" she mocked, "Old! You! I! Ha!"




IV

THE MAN WITHIN HIM