"T.A.," said Emma McChesney solemnly, "Jock will be drawing a
man-size salary now. Something tells me I'll be a grandmother in
another two years. Girls aren't letting men like Jock run around
loose. He'll be gobbled up. Just you wait."

"Oh, I don't know," drawled Buck mischievously. "You've just said
he's a headstrong young cub. He strikes me as the kind who'd
raise the dickens if his three-minute egg happened to be five
seconds overtime."

Emma McChesney swung around in her chair. "Look here, T.A. As
business partners we've quarreled about everything from silk
samples to traveling men, and as friends we've wrangled on every
subject from weather to war. I've allowed you to criticise my soul
theories, and my new spring hat. But understand that I'm the only
living person who has the right to villify my son, Jock
McChesney."

The telephone buzzed a punctuation to this period.

"Baumgartner?" inquired Buck humbly.

She listened a moment, then, over her shoulder,
"Baumgartner,"--grimly, her hand covering the mouthpiece--"and
if he thinks that he can work off a lot of last year's silk
swatches on--Hello! Yes, Mrs. McChesney talking. Look here, Mr.
Baumgartner--"

And for the time being Emma McChesney, mother, was relegated to
the background, while Emma McChesney, secretary of the T.A. Buck