grand opening at the new five-and-ten-cent store, with women streaming
in and streaming out again, each with a souvenir pink carnation pinned
to her coat; every one carrying bundles and yellow paper bags that
might contain bananas or hats or grass seed; the thirty-two
automobiles that the town boasts all dashing up and down the street,
driven by hatless youths in careful college clothes; a crowd of at
least eleven waiting at Jenson's drug-store corner for the next
interurban car.

Emma McChesney found herself strolling when she should have been
hustling in the direction of the Novelty Cloak and Suit Store. She was
aware of a vague, strangely restless feeling in the region of her
heart--or was it her liver?--or her lungs?

Reluctantly she turned in at the entrance of the Novelty Cloak and
Suit Store and asked for the buyer. (Here we might introduce one of
those side-splitting little business deal scenes. But there can be
paid no finer compliment to Emma McChesney's saleswomanship than to
state that she landed her man on a busy Saturday afternoon, with a
store full of customers and the head woman clerk dead against her from
the start.)

As she was leaving:

"Generally it's the other way around," smiled the boss, regarding
Emma's trim comeliness, "but seeing you're a lady, why, it'll be on
me." He reached for his hat. "Let's go and have--ah--a little
something."

"Not any, thanks," Emma McChesney replied, a little wearily.