slightly: "For that matter, they're looking for young men.
Everybody's young. Why, the biggest men in the advertising game
are just kids." He disappeared within his room, still talking.
"Look at McQuirk, advertising manager of the Combs Car Company.
He's so young he has to disguise himself in bone-trimmed
eye-glasses with a black ribbon to get away with it. Look at
Hopper, of the Berg, Shriner Company. Pulls down ninety thousand a
year, and if he's thirty-five I'll--"

"Well, you asked my advice," interrupted his mother's voice with
that muffled effect which is caused by a skirt being slipped over
the head, "and I gave it. Wear a white duck sailor suit with blue
anchors and carry a red tin pail and a shovel, if you want to look
young. Only get into it in a jiffy, Son, because breakfast will be
ready in ten minutes. I can tell by the way Annie's crashing the
cups. So step lively if you want to pay your lovely mother's
subway fare."

Ten minutes later the slim young figure, in its English-fitting
black and white, sat opposite Emma McChesney at the breakfast
table and between excited gulps of coffee outlined a meteoric
career in his chosen field. And the more he talked and the rosier
his figures of speech became, the more silent and thoughtful fell
his mother. She wondered if five o'clock would find a droop to the
set of those young shoulders; if the springy young legs in their
absurdly scant modish trousers would have lost some of their
elasticity; if the buoyant step in the flat-heeled shoes would not
drag a little. Thirteen years of business experience had taught
her to swallow smilingly the bitter pill of rebuff. But this boy
was to experience his first dose to-day. She felt again that