Roast Beef, Medium

d to a hotel bedroom, or a sleeper berth by night, and chained to a sample case by day agrees in this, first: That it isn't what it used to be. Second: If only they could find an opening for a ni

d the kids know the iceman bet

d her job; she loathed her yellow sample cases; she longed to call Miss Stitch a green-eyed cat; and she wished that she had chosen some easy and pleasant way of earning a living, like doing plain and fancy washing and ironing

urns sharply away from the face. For forty-six weeks in the year Miss Stitch existed in Kiser & Bloch's store at River Falls. For six weeks, two in spring, two in fall, and two in mid-winte

for a thriving department store in a hustling little Middle-Western town isn't to be neglected. Whenever a show came to River Falls Hattie would look bored, pass a weary hand over her glossy coiffure and say: "Oh, yes. Clever little show. Saw it two winters ago in New York. This won't be the original company, of course." The year that Hattie came back wearing a set of skunk everyone thought it was lynx until Hattie drew attention to what she called the "brown tone" in it. After that Old Lady Heinz got her old skunk furs out of the moth balls and tobacco and newspapers that had preserved them, and her daughter cut them up into bands for the bottom of her skirt, and

she looked like a kid, and that that was some classy little gown, and it wasn't every woman who could wear that kind of thing and get away with it. It took a

way in my department. Pity if I couldn't have. I made it. Well, Kiser wanted to know why I didn't buy Featherlooms. I said we had no call for 'em, and he came back

objected

k. Not that I'd go to the theater in the evening with a woman, because I wouldn't, but-Say, listen. Why don't you make a play for her job? As long as I've got to put in a

e each other, don't you! You don't. I don't mind telling you my firm's cutting down its road force, and none of us knows who's going to be beheaded next. But-well-a guy wouldn't want to ta

square. Let me tell you that I heard she's no better than she might be. I ha

ether over the little, ros

lked into the office of the T. A. Buck Featherl

rmed him, "spaing, and sprudeling, an

Ed Meyers. "You don't mean to t

looking like a stick of licorice. When they thought old T. A. was going to die, young T. A. seemed to straighten out all of a sudden and

," and entered, smiling. Ed Meyers had a smile so che

-other than on the hoof." And he offered young T. A. a large, dark cigar with a fussy-looki

re you

pped in-" began

I have one little formula for all visitors to-day, regardless of whethe

t's a woman's garment, but a man's line. There's fifty reasons why a woman can't handle it like a man. For one thing the packing cases weigh twenty-five pounds each, and she's as dependent on a packer and a porter as a baby is on its mother. Another is that if a man has to get up to make a train at 4 A.M. he don't require twenty-five minutes to fasten down

g T. A., with the

the returns from your Middle-Western territory." T. A. Junior had strangely translucent eyes. Their luminous quality had an odd effect upon any one on whom he happened to

s. McChesney's territ

confessed Ed Meye

im the piece of paper on which he had been scrawling, crushed

down," he said. "The nea

ll," he said, rising. "I just made you a business proposition, tha

l," observed T. A. J

paused, turned, and came back to his chai

wouldn't have. But I want to say to you that McChesney's giving this firm a black eye. Morals don't

every way, as T. A. Junior's lean, graceful height towered over the fat man's bulk. "I don't know Mrs. McChesney," said T. A. Junior. "I haven't even seen her in six years. My interest in the business is very recent. I do know that my father swears she's the best salesman

ding, clutched his de

ummer I had it from the clerk of the hotel in that town that she ran around all day with a woman named LeHaye-Blanche LeHaye, of an aggregation of bum burlesquers called the Sam Levin Crackerjack Belles. And say, for a whole month there, she had a tough young kid traveling with he

an stepped into the elevator and smiled radiant

in New York? I haven't been here in

a mat in the waiting-room and wish yourself down to the track an' train that you're leavin' on. The G'ints have picked a bunch of shines this season. T. A. Junior's got a new sixty-power auto.

kkeeper's desk. The head bookkeeper was a woman. Old Man Buck had learned something about the

d to be here. Is it true that skirts are going t

pecialty of first nights, and first editions, and French cars when he did show up here. But now! He's changed the advertising, and designing, and cutting departments around here until there's as much difference between this place now and t

to reply when the door of T. A. Buck's private office opened, and Ed Meyers walked briskly out. Emma McChesney put down the

itself into a smile. He

s every little thing? I'm darned if you don't grow

" inquired Mrs. M

'Honestly. I'd w

e, paying little gents' furnishing business in a live little town that wasn't swampe

"It might sound better," and march

neck would never lap over the edge of his collar in the back. Then Young T. A. turned about. He gazed at Emma McChesney, his eyebrow

p, considering business, and politics, and all that. I'm sorry to hear your

ng hat to the toes of her well-shod feet, with full stops for the fit of her tailored suit, the f

your trip. There are several little things-now Kiser & Bloch, of River Falls, for instance. We ought to be selling

McChesney quickly. "A

hought a minut

en she looked up. "The kindest and gentlest thing I can say about her is tha

in his chair and threw back his

our son?" with disc

sney was piecing odds and ends together, and shaping the whole to

ched her face wit

ou have a young man son? Qu

maiden name was, or the size of my shoes, or whether I take my coffee with or without. That's because I don't believe in dragging private and family affairs into the bus

eyes-those eyes that had seen so much of the world and its ways, and that still could return your gaze so clearly and honestly-widened until t

me a little quickly. But when she spok

k, and seven when I had a Sunday customer. They've not only been my business and my means of earning a livelihood, they've been my religion, my diversion, my life, my pet pastime. I

ve talked petticoats, I've dreamed pettico

so many women found irresistible. He took a step forward and laid one well-shaped hand on Emma McChesney's arm. S

I've just bought a new sixty-power machine. Have dinner with me to-night, will you? And we'll take a r

and that covered her own. The blue of her eyes an

amental hands and luminous eyes. Give me one of the bull-necked, red-faced, hoarse-voiced, fresh kind every time. You know what they're going to say, at least, and you're prepared for them. If I were to tell you how the hand you're holding is tingling to box your ea

tell the trut

ation. Besides, no plain, everyday workingwoman could enjoy herself in your car because her conscience wouldn't let her. She'd be thinking all the time how she was depriving some poor, hard-working chorus girl of her legitimate pastime, and that would spoil everything. The elev

Mrs. Mc

ouldn't stand much more. I joke, you know,

r. T. A. Junior overtook her in three long st

y, with a weary brightness,

was a statue of modern business methods, but after to-day I'm going to ask the office boy

t," said Emma McCh

aren't words enough in the language. Why, you're the finest little woman-you're-you'd restore the faith of a cynic who had chronic indigestion. I wish I-Say, let me relieve

before her face. "I'll stop in a minute. There; I'm stop

ll. I'll do it. Just before I came in they showed me that new embroidery flounced model you just designed. Maybe you don't know it, but women wear only one limp petticoat nowadays. And buttoned shoes. The eyelets in that embroidery are just big enough to cat

addressing the backs of the lett

dressing the backs of the letters on the door marked "Pri