at one o'clock on the
afternoon of March fifteenth. At ten o'clock that morning, there
breezed in from Chicago a tall, slim, alert young man, who made
straight for the offices of the T. A. Buck Featherloom Petticoat
Company, walked into the junior partner's private office, and took that
astonished lady in his two strong arms.

"Jock McChesney!" gasped his rumpled mother, emerging from the hug.
"I've been hungry for a sight of you!" She was submerged in a second
hug. "Come here to the window where I can get a real look at you! Why
didn't you wire me? What are you doing away from your own job? How's
business? And why come to-day, of all days, when I can't make a fuss
over you?"

Jock McChesney, bright-eyed, clear-skinned, steady of hand, stood up
well under the satisfied scrutiny of his adoring mother. He smiled
down at her.

"Wanted to surprise you. Here for three reasons--the Abbott
Grape-juice advertising contract, you, and Grace. And why can't you
make a fuss over me, I'd like to know?"

Emma told him. His keen, quick mind required little in the way of
explanation.

"But why didn't you let me in on it sooner?"

"Because, son, nothing explains harder than embryo success. I always
prefer to wait until it's grown up and let it do its own explaining."

"But the thing ought to have national advertising," Jock insisted, with
the advertising expert's lightning grasp of its possibilities. "What
that skirt needs is publicity. Why didn't you let me handle----"

"Yes, I know, dear; but you haven't seen the skirt. It won't do to ram
it down their throats. I want to ease it to them first. I want them to
get used to it. It failed utterly on the road, because it jarred their
notion of what a petticoat ought to be. That's due to five years of
sheath skirts."

"But suppose--just for the sake of argument--that it doesn't strike
them right this afternoon?"

"Then it's gone, that's all. Six months from now, every skirt-factory
in the country will be manufacturing a similar garment. People will be
ready for it then. I've just tried to cut in ahead of the rest.
Perhaps I shouldn't have tried to do it."

Jock hugged her again at that, to the edification of the office windows
across the way.

"Gad, you're a wiz, mother! Now listen: I 'phoned Grace when I got
in. She's going to meet me here at one. I'll chase over to the office
now on this grape-juice thing and come back here in time for lunch. Is
T.