at you to
it."

"So I see," smiled Emma, cheerfully. "I was delayed. Just sold a nice
little bill to Watkins down the street." She seated herself across the
way, and kept her eyes on that closed door.

"Say, kid," Meyers began, in the husky whisper of the fat man, "I'm
going to put you wise to something, seeing you're new to this game. See
that lady over there?" He nodded discreetly in Emma McChesney's
direction.

"Pretty, isn't she?" said Jock, appreciatively.

"Know who she is?"

"Well--I--she does look familiar, but----"

"Oh, come now, quit your bluffing. If you'd ever met that dame you'd
remember it. Her name's McChesney--Emma McChesney, and she sells T. A.
Buck's Featherloom Petticoats. I'll give her her dues; she's the best
little salesman on the road. I'll bet that girl could sell a ruffled,
accordion-plaited underskirt to a fat woman who was trying to reduce.
She's got the darndest way with her. And at that she's straight, too."

If Ed Meyers had not been gazing so intently into his hat, trying at
the same time to look cherubically benign he might have seen a quick and
painful scarlet sweep the face of the boy, coupled with a certain tense
look of the muscles around the jaw.

"Well, now, look here," he went on, still in a whisper. "We're both
skirt men, you and me. Everything's fair in this game. Maybe you don't
know it, but when there's a bunch of the boys waiting around to see the
head of the store like this, and there happens to be a lady traveler in
the crowd, why, it's considered kind of a professional courtesy to let
the lady have the first look-in. See? It ain't so often that three
people in the same line get together like this. She knows it, and she's
sitting on the edge of her chair, waiting to bolt when that door opens,
even if she does act like she was hanging on the words of that lady
clerk there. The minute it does open a crack she'll jump up and give me
a fleeting, grateful smile, and sail in and cop a fat order away from
the old man and his skirt buyer. I'm wise. Say, he may be an oyster, but
he knows a pretty woman when he sees one. By the time she's through with
him he'll have enough petticoats on hand to last him from now until
Turkey goes suffrage. Get me?"

"I get you," answered Jock.

"I say, this is business, and good manners be hanged. When a woman
breaks into a man's game like this, let her take her chances like a man.
Ain't that straight?"

"You've said something," agreed