and wear out the
leather chairs, and use up the matches and toothpicks and get the
baseball returns, and immediately you turn away a traveling man who uses
a three-dollar-a-day room, with a sample room downstairs for his stuff,
who tips every porter and bell-boy in the place, asks for no favors, and
who, if you give him a halfway decent cup of coffee for breakfast, will
fall in love with the place and boom it all over the country. Half of
your Benevolent Bisons are here on the European plan, with a view to
patronizing the free-lunch counters or being asked to take dinner at the
home of some local Bison whose wife has been cooking up on pies, and
chicken salad and veal roast for the last week."

Emma McChesney leaned over the desk a little, and lowered her voice to
the tone of confidence. "Now, I'm not in the habit of making a nuisance
of myself like this. I don't get so chatty as a rule, and I know that I
could jump over to Monmouth and get first-class accommodations there.
But just this once I've a good reason for wanting to make you and myself
a little miserable. Y'see, my son is traveling with me this trip."

"Son!" echoed the clerk, staring.

"Thanks. That's what they all do. After a while I'll begin to believe
that there must be something hauntingly beautiful and girlish about me
or every one wouldn't petrify when I announce that I've a six-foot son
attached to my apron-strings. He looks twenty-one, but he's seventeen.
He thinks the world's rotten because he can't grow one of those fuzzy
little mustaches that the men are cultivating to match their hats. He's
down at the depot now, straightening out our baggage. Now I want to say
this before he gets here. He's been out with me just four days. Those
four days have been a revelation, an eye-opener, and a series of rude
jolts. He used to think that his mother's job consisted of traveling in
Pullmans, eating delicate viands turned out by the hotel chefs, and
strewing Featherloom Petticoats along the path. I gave him plenty of
money, and he got into the habit of looking lightly upon anything more
trifling than a five-dollar bill. He's changing his mind by great leaps.
I'm prepared to spend the night in the coal cellar if you'll just fix
him up--not too comfortably. It'll be a great lesson for him. There he
is now. Just coming in. Fuzzy coat and hat and English stick. Hist! As
they say on the stage."

The boy crossed the crowded lobby. There was a little worried, anno