some wheat cakes, and steak, and eggs, and coffee, and fruit, and
toast, and rolls."

"Why slight the fish?" inquired his mother. Then, as he turned toward
the dining-room, "I've two letters to get out. Then I'm going down the
street to see a customer. I'll be up at the Sulzberg-Stein department
store at nine sharp. There's no use trying to see old Sulzberg before
ten, but I'll be there, anyway, and so will Ed Meyers, or I'm no skirt
salesman. I want you to meet me there. It will do you good to watch
how the overripe orders just drop, ker-plunk, into my lap."

Maybe you know Sulzberg & Stein's big store? No? That's because you've
always lived in the city. Old Sulzberg sends his buyers to the New
York market twice a year, and they need two floor managers on the main
floor now. The money those people spend for red and green decorations
at Christmas time, and apple-blossoms and pink crepe paper shades in
the spring, must be something awful. Young Stein goes to Chicago to
have his clothes made, and old Sulzberg likes to keep the traveling
men waiting in the little ante-room outside his private office.

Jock McChesney finished his huge breakfast, strolled over to Sulzberg
& Stein's, and inquired his way to the office only to find that his
mother was not yet there. There were three men in the little waiting-
room. One of them was Fat Ed Meyers. His huge bulk overflowed the
spindle-legged chair on which he sat. His brown derby was in his
hands. His eyes were on the closed door at the other side of the room.
So were the eyes of the other two travelers. Jock took a vacant seat
next to Fat Ed Meyers so that he might, in his mind's eye, pick out a
particularly choice spot upon which his hard young fist might land--if
only he had the chance. Breaking up a man's sleep like that, the great