McChesney?"

"Thanks. Not to-night."

Meyers turned to the waiting elevator. "Fromkin, you go on up with the
boy; I'll talk to the lady a minute."

A little displeased frown appeared on Emma McChesney's face.

"You'll have to excuse me, Mr. Meyers, I--"

"Heigh-ho for that haughty stuff, Mrs. McChesney," grinned Ed Meyers.
"Don't turn up your nose at that little Kike friend of mine till
you've heard what I have to say. Now just let me talk a minute.
Fromkin's heard all about you. He's got a proposition to make. And it
isn't one to sniff at."

He lowered his voice mysteriously in the silence of the dim hotel
corridor.

"Fromkin started in a little one-room hole-in-the-wall over on the
East Side. Lived on a herring and a hunk of rye bread. Wife used to
help him sew. That was seven years ago. In three years, or less,
she'll have the regulation uniform--full length seal coat, bunch of
paradise, five-drop diamond La Valliere set in platinum, electric
brougham. Abe has got a business head, take it from me. But he's wise
enough to know that business isn't the rough-and-tumble game it used
to be. He realizes that he'll do for the workrooms, but not for the
front shop. He knows that if he wants to keep on growing he's got to
have what they call a steerer. Somebody smooth, and polished, and