ame's new to me. I'm
really leaving it in your hands. I really thought that Mrs.
McChesney's idea was to make a point of the fact that these
petticoats were not freak petticoats, but skirts for the everyday
women. She gave me what I thought was a splendid argument a week
ago." He turned to her helplessly.

Mrs. McChesney sat silent.

Bartholomew Berg leaned forward a little and smiled one of his
rare smiles.

"Won't you tell us, Mrs. McChesney? We'd all like to hear what you
have to say."

Mrs. McChesney looked down at her hands. Then she looked up, and
addressed what she had to say straight to Bartholomew Berg.

"I--simply didn't want to interfere in this business. I know
nothing about it, really. Of course, I do know Featherloom
petticoats. I know all about them. It seemed to me that just
because the newspapers and magazines were full of pictures showing
spectacular creatures in impossible attitudes wearing tango tea
skirts, we are apt to forget that those types form only a thin
upper crust, and that down beneath there are millions and millions
of regular, everyday women doing regular everyday things in
regular everyday clothes. Women who wash on Monday, and iron on
Tuesday, and bake one-egg cakes, and who have to hurry home to get
supper when they go down-town in the afternoon. They're the kind
who go to market every morning, and take the baby along in the
go-cart, and they're not wearing crepe de chine tango petticoats
to do it in, either. They're wearing skirts with a drawstring in
the back, and a label in the band, guaranteed to last one year.
Those are the people I'd like to reach, and hold."

"Hm!" said Hopper, from his corner, cryptically.

Bartholomew Berg looked at Emma McChesney admiringly. "Sounds
reasonable and logical," he said.

Sam Hupp sat up with a jerk.

"It does sound reasonable," he said briskly. "But it isn't. Pardon
me, won't you, Mrs. McChesney? But you must realize that this is
an extravagant age. The very workingmen's wives have caught the
spending fever. The time is past when you can attract people to
your goods with the promise of durability and wear. They don't
expect goods to wear. They'd resent it if they did. They get tired
of an article before it's worn out. They're looking for novelties.
They'd rather get two months' wear out of a skirt that's slashed a
new way, than a year's wear out of one that looks like the sort
that mother used to make."

Mrs. McChesney, her cheeks