Personality Plus: Some Experiences of Emma McChesney and Her Son, Jock

h. That oily-tongued, persuasive, soft-stepping stranger in the rusty Prince Albert and the black string tie who had been wont to haunt our back steps and front offices w

er was robed in clouds and which used the chain lightning for a necklace? The Fourth Avenue antique d

nen. Dapper he was, and dressy, albeit inclined to glittering effects and a certain plethory at the back of the neck. Back of him stood shining shapes that reflected his glory in enamel, and brass, and glass. His language was floral, but choice; his talk was of gearings and bearings and cylinders and

o that he fell to speaking of them as necessities instead of luxuries. He juggled figures, and thought nothing of four of them in a row. We looked at our five-thousan

listened, while you talked. His method, in turn, made that of the silk-lined salesman sound like the hoarse hoots of the ballyhoo man at a county fair. Blithely he accepted five hundred thousand dollars and g

other's bedroom. His toilette had halted abruptly at the bathrobe stage. One of those bulky garments swathed his slim figure, while o

ray garment on his

's the matter with it!" he d

er back hair in the mirror, paused, hand

ed cheerfully. "I'll te

's length and stared at it

But Norfolk suits spell tennis, and seashore, and elegant leisure. And you're going out this morning, Son, to interview business men. You're going to try to impress the advertising world with

it back o

's young. Why, the biggest men in the advertising game are just kids." He disappeared within his room, still talking. "Look at McQuirk, advertising manager of the Combs Car Company. He's so young he ha

Wear a white duck sailor suit with blue anchors and carry a red tin pail and a shovel, if you want to look young. Only get into it in a jiffy, Son, because

the springy young legs in their absurdly scant modish trousers would have lost some of their elasticity; if the buoyant step in the flat-heeled shoes would not drag a little. Thirteen years of business experience had taught her to swallow smilingly the bitter pill of rebuff. But this boy was to experience his first dose to-day. She felt again that sensation of almost physical nausea-that sickness of heart and spiri

at in the subways, and street cars and L-trains. I want to sit across the aisle and w

necktie you're wearing, Jock?"

n scarf that the season's mode demanded. Immediately he was off again. "And the first thing you know, Mrs. McChesney, ma'am, we'l

er bit of toast, then loo

r the trial heats, Jock, befo

ys. It needs money. I want to be rich! Not just prosperous, but rich! So rich that I can let the bath soap float arou

es. The harder you blow and the more you inflate them, the quicker they burst. Plans and ambitions are thi

blonde," he laughed. "Because I'm going to be a captain of finance-an a

e looked unbelievably young, and trim, and ra

You see, they'll only regard your feats and say, 'H'm, no wonder. He oug

od ready to reach her office by nine-thirty. But because she was as motherly as she was mod

ettuce." She glanced toward Jock in the hallway, then lowered her voice. "Annie," she teased, "just giv

vine-wreathed porch of a cottage. There was no watching a son from the tenth floor of an up-town apartment house. Besides, she had her work to do. The subw

e platform. Emma McChesney managed to turn in her nine-inch space of train seat so that she watched the slim, buoyant young figure from the window un

and tell you to sweep down the back stairs, take it, and sweep, and don't forget the corners. And if, while you're s

e hallway he went and into the reception room. A cruel test it was, that reception room, with the cruelty peculiar to the modern in business. With its soft-shaded lamp, its two-toned rug, its Jacobean chairs, its mag

ood it triumphantly. He had entered with an air in which was mingled the briskness of assurance wi

et reserved, inquiring, yet not offensively curious-a very Machiavelli of reception-room

his shirt, tie, collar and scarf pin, upon which the appr

oint

he'll

overconfident callers. Their very

lease state yo

brushed an imaginary fleck of dust fr

for a job as offi

res of the usher. Even an usher likes his

im, asking me to call,"

oward the sacred inner portal and held it ope

sorbedly over papers, girls busy with dictation, here and there a door revealing two men, or three, deep in discussion of a problem, heads close together, voices low, faces earnest. It came suddenly to the smartly modish, overconfident boy walking the length of the long room that the last person needed in this marvelously perfected and smooth-running o

cue in the wings, could have planned his entrance more carefully than Jock had planned this. Ea

accompaniment, it is doubtful if the man at the desk would have looked up. Pencil between his fingers, head held a trifle to one side

rked on. His head was semi-bald. Jock knew him to be thi

ou three days ago; you probably will rememb

the man at the de

ent of silence, except for the sound of the busy pencil traveling

upp, if you're to

s a busy man makes when he is trying

ense in staying; but it seem

final period, enclosed the dot in a proofreader's ci

onted Jock. "I had to get that out. They're waiting for it." He p

ise-rimmed glasses gave him an oddly owlish look, like a

itting down, his ang

ork for this concern." He braced himself to present the convin

oceeded to whisk his breath and a

What do you

n. "Do!" he stammered

radiant, correctly-garbed young figure before him. Unc

about writing,

lay that we gave last year, and I was assistant advertising manager of the college pu

pp, and covered his eyes w

was returning. Sam Hupp recovered h

tion-room usher is an office boy in long pants. Sometimes, when I'm optimistic, I think that

Hupp's glance was over his head. Involuntarily

a voice fro

ch! Come in!"

dest might well hesitate to address as "Dutch"-a

Von Herman, head of

clasp. Von Herman's thought

had the whole series blocked out in my mind. He was a wonder. No brains, but a marvel for loo

n's late, as it is. Can't you get an ordina

lay my hands on a chap who could wea

is fingers. "Clothes! Look at him. He invented 'em. Why,

his artist eye brightening at the ease and grace and

uffused with a dull, painful re

ded him, "you said

changed to surprise as he beheld the glare in Jock's eyes fading. For even as he glared there had come a warning to Jock-a warning sent just i

. They'll try it. If they give you a broom

ng his charmin

hed at Von Herman. "Got any Robert W.

he spirit, McChesney! That's the-" He stopped, abruptly. "Say, are y

e's my one an

son of your mother I wish you'd just call the office boy as you step down the hall with Von H

r or two," grinned Jock from the doorway

up in corners. And yet there was a bare and orderly look about the place. Two silent, shirt-sleeved men were busy at drawing boards. Through a doorway beyond Jock could see others similarly engaged in the next room. On a platform in one corner of the room posed a young man in one of those costumes the coat of which is a mongrel mixture of cutaway and sack. You see them worn by clergymen with un

he said to the model. He glanced again at the drawing. "Bring out the hat a little more, Mack.

childishly slim figure in a bronze-green Norfolk suit and close-fitting hat fro

girl," he said

elin-Gelda Michelin. I posed for you six months ago,

index, ran his long fingers through it and extracted a card.

59. Brunette. Medium build. Good neck

ced up.

and neck and clothes. Of course my hair is different and I am thinner, but that's b

e two men at the drawing boards. "What are we going to do? We've got to make a start on these pictures and everything has gone wrong. They want something special. Two figures, yo

ned, velvet-eyed, foreign-looking youth-was making on the sheet of paper before him. He h

nciation of the foreign-born. "Good figure. And he wear

ish curiosity getting the better of him, "Say, tell

smile. His slim brown fingers never stopped in

of an artist. I am now engaged in the pleasing

man, he thought, who had been given a b

slip," he said. Then, his face brightening, "By Jove! I wonder if

, aside, "Of course it's nerve to ask a girl who's earning three thousa

o enjoy himself. Even this end of the advertising business had it

irl. Smooth black hair parted and coiled low as only an exquisitely shaped head can dare to wear its glory-crown. A face whose expressio

's summer campaign stuff. We'll only need you for an hour or so-to get the expression and general

e to get that Kool Komfort account. We don't want to start w

Just as suddenly Von Herman remembere

alt, crisply. "I know a Mrs.

her," p

! Then why-"

er Company. And when I begin to realize what I don't know abou

at him, her clear, f

win,"

in now," said Jock,

ose!" called Von