Chapter 9

“Cafe? We'll have a bottle--”

“No.”

“Oh! Er--parlor?”

Mrs. McChesney smiled. “I won't ask you to make yourself that miserable. You can't smoke in the parlor. We'll find a quiet corner in the writing-room, where you men can light up. I don't want to take advantage of you.”

Down in the writing-room at eight they formed a strange little group. Ed Meyers, flushed and eager, his pink face glowing like a peony, talking, arguing, smoking, reasoning, coaxing, with the spur of a fat commission to urge him on; Abel Fromkin, with his peculiarly pallid skin made paler in contrast to the purplish-black line where the razor had passed, showing no hint of excitement except in the restless little black eyes and in the work-scarred hands that rolled cigarette after cigarette, each glowing for one brief instant, only to die down to a blackened ash the next; Emma McChesney, half fascinated, half distrustful, listening in spite of herself, and trying to still a small inner voice--a voice that had never advised her ill.

“You know the ups and downs to this game,” Ed Meyers was saying. “When I met you there in the elevator you looked like you'd lost your last customer. You get pretty disgusted with it all, at times, like the rest of us.”

“At that minute,” replied Emma McChesney, “I was so disgusted that if some one had called me up on the 'phone and said, 'Hullo, Mrs. McChesney! Will you marry me?' I'd have said: 'Yes. Who is this?'”

“There! That's just it. I don't want to be impolite, or anything like that, Mrs. McChesney, but you're no kid. Not that you look your age--not by ten years! But I happen to know you're teetering somewhere between thirty-six and the next top. Ain't that right?”

“Is that a argument to put to a lady?” remonstrated Abel Fromkin.

Fat Ed Meyers waved the interruption away with a gesture of his strangely slim hands. “This ain't an argument. It's facts. Another ten years on the road, and where'll you be? In the discard. A man of forty-six can keep step with the youngsters, even if it does make him puff a bit. But a woman of forty-six--the road isn't the place for her. She's tired. Tired in the morning; tired at night. She wants her kimono and her afternoon snooze. You've seen some of those old girls on the road. They've come down step by step until you spot 'em, bleached hair, crow's-feet around the eyes, mussy shirt-waist, yellow and red complexion, demonstrating green and lavender gelatine messes in the grocery of some department store. I don't say that a brainy corker of a saleswoman like you would come down like that. But you've got to consider sickness and a lot of other things. Those six weeks last summer with the fever at Glen Rock put a crimp in you, didn't it? You've never been yourself since then. Haven't had a decent chance to rest up.”

“No,” said Emma McChesney wearily.

“Furthermore, now that old T. A.'s cashed in, how do you know what young Buck's going to do? He don't know shucks about the skirt business. They've got to take in a third party to keep it a close corporation. It was all between old Buck, Buck junior, and old lady Buck. How can you tell whether the new member will want a woman on the road, or not?”

A little steely light hardened the blue of Mrs. McChesney's eyes.

“We'll leave the firm of T. A. Buck out of this discussion, please.”

“Oh, very well!” Ed Meyers was unabashed. “Let's talk about Fromkin. He don't object, do you, Abe? It's just like this. He needs your smart head. You need his money. It'll mean a sure thing for you--a share in a growing and substantial business. When you get your road men trained it'll mean that you won't need to go out on the road yourself, except for a little missionary trip now and then, maybe. No more infernal early trains, no more bum hotel grub, no more stuffy, hot hotel rooms, no more haughty lady buyers--gosh, I wish I had the chance!”

Emma McChesney sat very still. Two scarlet spots glowed in her cheeks. “No one appreciates your gift of oratory more than I do, Mr. Meyers. Your flow of language, coupled with your peculiar persuasive powers, make a combination a statue couldn't resist. But I think it would sort of rest me if Mr. Fromkin were to say a word, seeing that it's really his funeral.”

Abel Fromkin started nervously, and put his dead cigarette to his lips. “I ain't much of a talker,” he said, almost sheepishly. “Meyers, he's got it down fine. I tell you what. I'll be in New York the twenty-first. We can go over the books and papers and the whole business. And I like you should know my wife. And I got a little girl--Would you believe it, that child ain't more as a year old, and says Papa and Mama like a actress!”

“Sure,” put in Ed Meyers, disregarding the more intimate family details. “You two get together and fix things up in shape; then you can sign up and have it off your mind so you can enjoy the festive Christmas season.”

Emma McChesney had been gazing out of the window to where the street-lamps were reflected in the ice-covered pavements. Now she spoke, still staring out upon the wintry street.

“Christmas isn't a season. It's a feeling. And I haven't got it.”

“Oh, come now, Mrs. McChesney!” objected Ed Meyers.

With a sudden, quick movement Emma McChesney turned from the window to the little dark man who was watching her so intently. She faced him squarely, as though utterly disregarding Ed Meyers' flattery and banter and cajolery. The little man before her seemed to recognize the earnestness of the moment. He leaned forward a bit attentively.

“If what has been said is true,” she began, “this ought to be a good thing for me. If I go into it, I'll go in heart, soul, brain, and pocket-book. I do know the skirt business from thread to tape and back again. I've managed to save a few thousand dollars. Only a woman could understand how I've done it. I've scrimped on little things. I've denied myself necessities. I've worn silk blouses instead of linen ones to save laundry-bills and taken a street-car or 'bus to save a quarter or fifty cents. I've always tried to look well dressed and immaculate--”

“You!” exclaimed Ed Meyers. “Why, say, you're what I call a swell dresser. Nothing flashy, understand, or loud, but the quiet, good stuff that spells ready money.”

“M-m-m--yes. But it wasn't always so ready. Anyway, I always managed somehow. The boy's at college. Sometimes I wonder--well, that's another story. I've saved, and contrived, and planned ahead for a rainy day. There have been two or three times when I thought it had come. Sprinkled pretty heavily, once or twice. But I've just turned up my coat-collar, tucked my hat under my skirt, and scooted for a tree. And each time it has turned out to be just a summer shower, with the sun coming out bright and warm.”

Her frank, clear, honest, blue eyes were plumbing the depths of the black ones. “Those few thousand dollars that you hold so lightly will mean everything to me. They've been my cyclone-cellar. If--”

Through the writing-room sounded a high-pitched, monotonous voice with a note of inquiry in it.

“Mrs. McChesney! Mr. Fraser! Mr. Ludwig! Please! Mrs. McChesney! Mr. Fraser! Mr. Lud--”

“Here, boy!” Mrs. McChesney took the little yellow envelope from the salver that the boy held out to her. Her quick glance rested on the written words. She rose, her face colorless.

“Not bad news?” The two men spoke simultaneously.

“I don't know,” said Emma McChesney. “What would you say?”

She handed the slip of paper to Fat Ed Meyers. He read it in silence. Then once more, aloud:

“'Take first train back to New York. Spalding will finish your trip.'”

“Why--say--” began Meyers.

“Well?”

“Why--say--this--this looks as if you were fired!”

“Does, doesn't it?” She smiled.

“Then our little agreement goes?” The two men were on their feet, eager, alert. “That means you'll take Fromkin's offer?”

“It means that our little agreement is off. I'm sorry to disappoint you. I want to thank you both for your trouble. I must have been crazy to listen to you for a minute. I wouldn't have if I'd been myself.”

“But that telegram--”

“It's signed, 'T. A. Buck.' I'll take a chance.”

The two men stared after her, disappointment and bewilderment chasing across each face.

“Well, I thought I knew women, but--” began Ed Meyers fluently.

Passing the desk, Mrs. McChesney heard her name. She glanced toward the clerk. He was just hanging up the telephone-receiver.

“Baggage-room says the depot just notified 'em your trunks were traced to Columbia City. They're on their way here now.”

“Columbia City!” repeated Emma McChesney. “Do you know, I believe I've learned to hate the name of the discoverer of this fair land.”

Up in her room she opened the crumpled telegram again, and regarded it thoughtfully before she began to pack her bag.

The thoughtful look was still there when she entered the big bright office of the T. A. Buck Featherloom Petticoat Company. And with it was another expression that resembled contrition.

“Mr. Buck's waiting for you,” a stenographer told her.

Mrs. McChesney opened the door of the office marked “Private.”

Two men rose. One she recognized as the firm's lawyer. The other, who came swiftly toward her, was T. A. Buck--no longer junior. There was a new look about him--a look of responsibility, of efficiency, of clear-headed knowledge.

The two clasped hands--a firm, sincere, understanding grip.

Buck spoke first. “It's good to see you. We were talking of you as you came in. You know Mr. Beggs, of course. He has some things to tell you--and so have I. His will be business things, mine will be personal. I got there before father passed away--thank God! But he couldn't speak. He'd anticipated that with his clear-headedness, and he'd written what he wanted to say. A great deal of it was about you. I want you to read that letter later.”

“I shall consider it a privilege,” said Emma McChesney.

Mr. Beggs waved her toward a chair. She took it in silence. She heard him in silence, his sonorous voice beating upon her brain.

“There are a great many papers and much business detail, but that will be attended to later,” began Beggs ponderously. “You are to be congratulated on the position of esteem and trust which you held in the mind of your late employer. By the terms of his will--I'll put it briefly, for the moment--you are offered the secretaryship of the firm of T. A. Buck, Incorporated. Also you are bequeathed thirty shares in the firm. Of course, the company will have to be reorganized. The late Mr. Buck had great trust in your capabilities.”

Emma McChesney rose to her feet, her breath coming quickly. She turned to T. A. Buck. “I want you to know--I want you to know--that just before your telegram came I was half tempted to leave the firm. To--”

“Can't blame you,” smiled T. A. Buck. “You've had a rotten six months of it, beginning with that illness and ending with those infernal trunks. The road's no place for a woman.”

“Nonsense!” flashed Emma McChesney. “I've loved it. I've gloried in it. And I've earned my living by it. Giving it up--don't now think me ungrateful--won't be so easy, I can tell you.”

T. A. Buck nodded understandingly. “I know. Father knew too. And I don't want you to let his going from us make any difference in this holiday season. I want you to enjoy it and be happy.”

A shade crossed Emma McChesney's face. It was there when the door opened and a boy entered with a telegram. He handed it to Mrs. McChesney. It held ten crisp words:

_Changed my darn fool mind. Me for home and mother._

Emma McChesney looked up, her face radiant.

“Christmas isn't a season, Mr. Buck. It's a feeling; and, thank God, I've got it!”

IX

KNEE-DEEP IN KNICKERS

When the column of figures under the heading known as “Profits,” and the column of figures under the heading known as “Loss” are so unevenly balanced that the wrong side of the ledger sags, then to the listening stockholders there comes the painful thought that at the next regular meeting it is perilously possible that the reading may come under the heads of Assets and Liabilities.

There had been a meeting in the offices of the T. A. Buck Featherloom Petticoat Company, New York. The quarterly report had had a startlingly lop-sided sound. After it was over Mrs. Emma McChesney, secretary of the company, followed T. A. Buck, its president, into the big, bright show-room. T. A. Buck's hands were thrust deep into his pockets. His teeth worried a cigar, savagely. Care, that clawing, mouthing hag, perched on his brow, tore at his heart.

He turned to face Emma McChesney.

“Well,” he said, bitterly, “it hasn't taken us long, has it? Father's been dead a little over a year. In that time we've just about run this great concern, the pride of his life, into the ground.”

Mrs. Emma McChesney, calm, cool, unruffled, scrutinized the harassed man before her for a long minute.

“What rotten football material you would have made, wouldn't you?” she observed.

“Oh, I don't know,” answered T. A. Buck, through his teeth. “I can stand as stiff a scrimmage as the next one. But this isn't a game. You take things too lightly. You're a woman. I don't think you know what this means.”

Emma McChesney's lips opened as do those of one whose tongue's end holds a quick and stinging retort. Then they closed again. She walked over to the big window that faced the street. When she had stood there a moment, silent, she swung around and came back to where T. A. Buck stood, still wrapped in gloom.

“Maybe I don't take myself seriously. I'd have been dead ten years ago if I had. But I do take my job seriously. Don't forget that for a minute. You talk the way a man always talks when his pride is hurt.”

“Pride! It isn't that.”

“Oh, yes, it is. I didn't sell T. A. Buck's Featherloom Petticoats on the road for almost ten years without learning a little something about men and business. When your father died, and I learned that he had shown his appreciation of my work and loyalty by making me secretary of this great company, I didn't think of it as a legacy--a stroke of good fortune.”

“No?”

“No. To me it was a sacred trust--something to be guarded, nursed, cherished. And now you say we've run this concern into the ground. Do you honestly think that?”

T. A. shrugged impotent shoulders. “Figures don't lie.” He plunged into another fathom of gloom. “Another year like this and we're done for.”

Emma McChesney came over and put one firm hand on T. A. Buck's drooping shoulder. It was a strange little act for a woman--the sort of thing a man does when he would hearten another man.

“Wake up!” she said, lightly. “Wake up, and listen to the birdies sing. There isn't going to be another year like this. Not if the planning, and scheming, and brain-racking that I've been doing for the last two or three months mean anything.”

T. A. Buck seated himself as one who is weary, body and mind.

“Got another new one?”

Emma McChesney regarded him a moment thoughtfully. Then she stepped to the tall show-case, pushed back the sliding glass door, and pointed to the rows of brilliant-hued petticoats that hung close-packed within.

“Look at 'em!” she commanded, disgust in her voice. “Look at 'em!”

T. A. Buck raised heavy, lack-luster eyes and looked. What he saw did not seem to interest him. Emma McChesney drew from the rack a skirt of king's blue satin messaline and held it at arm's length.

“And they call that thing a petticoat! Why, fifteen years ago the material in this skirt wouldn't have made even a fair-sized sleeve.”

T. A. Buck regarded the petticoat moodily. “I don't see how they get around in the darned things. I honestly don't see how they wear 'em.”

“That's just it. They don't wear 'em. There you have the root of the whole trouble.”

“Oh, nonsense!” disputed T. A. “They certainly wear something--some sort of an--”

“I tell you they don't. Here. Listen. Three years ago our taffeta skirts ran from thirty-six to thirty-eight yards to the dozen. We paid from ninety cents to one dollar five a yard. Now our skirts run from twenty-five to twenty-eight yards to the dozen. The silk costs us from fifty to sixty cents a yard. Silk skirts used to be a luxury. Now they're not even a necessity.”

“Well, what's the answer? I've been pondering some petticoat problems myself. I know we've got to sell three skirts to-day to make the profit that we used to make on one three years ago.”

Emma McChesney had the brave-heartedness to laugh. “This skirt business reminds me of a game we used to play when I was a kid. We called it Going to Jerusalem, I think. Anyway, I know each child sat in a chair except the one who was It. At a signal everybody had to get up and change chairs. There was a wild scramble, in which the one who was It took part. When the burly-burly was over some child was always chairless, of course. He had to be It. That's the skirt business to-day. There aren't enough chairs to go round, and in the scramble somebody's got to be left out. And let me tell you, here and now, that the firm of T. A. Buck, Featherloom Petticoats, is not going to be It.”

T. A. rose as wearily as he had sat down. Even the most optimistic of watchers could have discerned no gleam of enthusiasm on his face.

“I thought,” he said listlessly, “that you and I had tried every possible scheme to stimulate the skirt trade.”

“Every possible one, yes,” agreed Mrs. McChesney, sweetly. “And now it's time to try the impossible. The possibilities haven't worked. My land! I could write a book on the Decline and Fall of the Petticoat, beginning with the billowy white muslin variety, and working up to the present slinky messaline affair. When I think of those dear dead days of the glorious--er--past, when the hired girl used to complain and threaten to leave because every woman in the family had at least three ruffled, embroidery-flounced white muslin petticoats on the line on Mondays--”

The lines about T. A. Buck's mouth relaxed into a grim smile.

“Remember that feature you got them to run in the _Sunday Sphere?_ The one headed 'Are Skirts Growing Fuller, and Where?'”

“Do I remember it!” wailed Emma McChesney. “And can I ever forget the money we put into that fringed model we called the Carmencita! We made it up so it could retail for a dollar ninety-five, and I could have sworn that the women would maim each other to get to it. But it didn't go. They won't even wear fringe around their ankles.”

T. A.'s grim smile stretched into a reminiscent grin. “But nothing in our whole hopeless campaign could touch your Municipal Purity League agitation for the abolition of the form-hugging skirt. You talked public morals until you had A. Comstock and Lucy Page Gaston looking like Parisian Apaches.”

A little laugh rippled up to Emma McChesney's lips, only to die away to a sigh. She shook her head in sorrowful remembrance.

“Yes. But what good did it do? The newspapers and magazines did take it up, but what happened? The dressmakers and tailors, who are charging more than ever for their work, and putting in half as much material, got together and knocked my plans into a cocked hat. In answer to those snap-shots showing what took place every time a woman climbed a car step, they came back with pictures of the styles of '61, proving that the street-car effect is nothing to what happened to a belle of '61 if she chanced to sit down or get up too suddenly in the hoop-skirt days.”

They were both laughing now, like a couple of children. “And, oh, say!” gasped Emma, “remember Moe Selig, of the Fine-Form Skirt Company, trying to get the doctors to state that hobble skirts were making women knock-kneed! Oh, mercy!”

But their laugh ended in a little rueful silence. It was no laughing matter, this situation. T. A. Buck shrugged his shoulders, and began a restless pacing up and down. “Yep. There you are. Meanwhile--”

“Meanwhile, women are still wearing 'em tight, and going petticoatless.”

Suddenly T. A. stopped short in his pacing and fastened his surprised and interested gaze on the skirt of the trim and correct little business frock that sat so well upon Emma McChesney's pretty figure.

“Why, look at that!” he exclaimed, and pointed with one eager finger.

“Mercy!” screamed Emma McChesney. “What is it? Quick! A mouse?”

T. A. Buck shook his head, impatiently. “Mouse! Lord, no! Plaits!”

“Plaits!”

She looked down, bewildered.

“Yes. In your skirt. Three plaits at the front-left, and three in the back. That's new, isn't it? If outer skirts are being made fuller, then it follows--”

“It ought to follow,” interrupted Emma McChesney, “but it doesn't. It lags way behind. These plaits are stitched down. See? That's the fiendishness of it. And the petticoat underneath--if there is one--must be just as smooth, and unwrinkled, and scant as ever. Don't let 'em fool you.”

Buck spread his palms with a little gesture of utter futility.

“I'm through. Out with your scheme. We're ready for it. It's our last card, whatever it is.”

There was visible on Emma McChesney's face that little tightening of the muscles, that narrowing of the eyelids which betokens intense earnestness; the gathering of all the forces before taking a momentous step. Then, as quickly, her face cleared. She shook her head with a little air of sudden decision.

“Not now. Just because it's our last card I want to be sure that I'm playing it well. I'll be ready for you to-morrow morning in my office. Come prepared for the jolt of your young life.”

For the first time since the beginning of the conversation a glow of new courage and hope lighted up T. A. Buck's good-looking features. His fine eyes rested admiringly upon Emma McChesney standing there by the great show-case. She seemed to radiate energy, alertness, confidence.

“When you begin to talk like that,” he said, “I always feel as though I could take hold in a way to make those famous jobs that Hercules tackled look like little Willie's chores after school.”

“Fine!” beamed Emma McChesney. “Just store that up, will you? And don't let it filter out at your finger-tips when I begin to talk to-morrow.”

“We'll have lunch together, eh? And talk it over then sociably.”

Mrs. McChesney closed the glass door of the case with a bang.

“No, thanks. My office at 9:30.”

T. A. Buck followed her to the door. “But why not lunch? You never will take lunch with me. Ever so much more comfortable to talk things over that way--”

“When I talk business,” said Emma McChesney, pausing at the threshold, “I want to be surrounded by a business atmosphere. I want the scene all set--one practical desk, two practical chairs, one telephone, one letter-basket, one self-filling fountain-pen, et cetera. And when I lunch I want to lunch, with nothing weightier on my mind than the question as to whether I'll have chicken livers saute or creamed sweetbreads with mushrooms.”

“That's no reason,” grumbled T. A. “That's an excuse.”

“It will have to do, though,” replied Mrs. McChesney abruptly, and passed out as he held the door open for her. He was still standing in the doorway after her trim, erect figure had disappeared into the little office across the hail.