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

the outer office forever reading last month's magazines. The badge of fear brands the novice. Standing hat in hand, nervous, apprehensive, gulpy, with the elevator door clanging behind him, and the

im agreeableness he says, "I'll wait," then has he reached the

ing less than white-hot hate. He had learned to let the other fellow do the talking. He had learned to condense a written report into twenty-five words. And he had learned that there

young McChesney was beginning to find the key to that maddening jumble of complexities known as human nature. Big Sam Hupp, who was the pet caged copy-writing genius

Manufactur

of the whole office force. Very touchy. Crumpled his advertising manage

r

reiss

seems to be Italy, Egypt, and other foreign ports.

ss himself-baggy-eyed, cultivated English accent, interes

ill a

ufacturin

lking. Has gained quite a reputation for business acumen with this one attribute

lightly patronizing way to his clever and secretly amused mother, Mrs. Emma McChesney, secretary of the T.A. Buck Featherloom Petticoat

shamed the toilette table of a musical comedy star's dressing-room. There were rose-tinted salves in white b

y in some surprise. Then he grinned, and glance

say if it's once gone

irless wonder yourself. Ten years ago the girls used to have to tie their hands or wear mitten

owned in thought. Then: "Thought I recognized this stu

al thing in toilette flub-dub. She's made a little fortune already, and if she don't look out she'll be rich. They've got quite a plant. When she started she used to put the stuff together h

advertised-somewhere," interrup

They say she's scared pink for fear somebody will steal her recipes. She has a kid nephew who acts as general manager, and they're both on

xi, of course. Strolling down the car aisle to take his place among those other thoroughbreds of commerce-men whose chamois gloves and walking sticks, and talk of golf and baseball and motoring spelled elegant leisure, even as t

Buffalo. It gets you to Tonawan

a!" repea

't. There are those who think it's a science. But it isn't that either. It's white magic, that's what it is. And you can't learn it from books, any more than you can master trout fishing from reading 'The

ittle dazed. "But,

s. He's got an idea that you-" He paused and put a detaining hand on Jock McChesney'

who put the whitening in the Great Wh

me coming for miles. But the Old Man,"-he leaned forward impressively,-"the Old Man, boy, has the eighty-power kind, built like a watch-no smoke, no dripping, and you can't even hear the engine purr. But when he throws her open! Well

man of his greatness. He paused a second outside Sam Hupp's office, turned, and walked quickly down the leng

game, and go downtown and buy that particular kind of magneto at once. Which is the secretest part of the wizardry of advertising copy. To look at Grace Galt you would have thought that she should have been writing about the rose-tinted jars in Jock McChesney's hands instead of about such things as ignition, and insulation, and ball bearings, and induct

y. "Going to run up-state to see the Athena Company-toile

Then her eyes cleared. "You mean at Tonawanda? And they're sending you

ad, eh?"

his office who have been here for five years, six years, or even more, and who have never

ted self-satisfaction. He seemed to grow and expand before her eyes. A litt

" she asked; "ju

he confessed ruefully, "I don't

oo

oo

s one reason why they didn't send me, I suppose.

like," said Jo

ssed and fussed. If you blush and stammer a l

't thought much about my attitude tow

o sound like something without which no home is complete, and to make people see that there's as much difference between it and every other magneto as there is between the steam shovels that dug out

gotten all about him. He walked quietly to the door, opened it, shut it very quietly, then made for the nearest tele

any? Mrs. McChesney." And w

Oh, a day or so. Rather important though. I'll have time to run up to the flat and throw a few things into a bag. I'll tell you, I really ought to keep a bag packed down here. In

and backed, and bumped and halted with maddening frequency. But it landed him at last in a little town bearing the characteristics of all Ameri

straw, and matting, and dust, and the ghost-odor of hundreds who had occupied the room before him. It came over him with something of a shock that this same sort of room had been his mother's only home in the ten years she had spent on the road as a traveling saleswoman for the T.A. Buck Featherloom Petticoat Company. This was what she had left in the morning. To this she had come back at night. As he stared ahead of him there rose before him a mental pi

or in the great office building that housed the Berg, Shriner Advertising Company. Just one more grain of buo

ce. But he did not use it. Instead he turned suddenly and walked down the hall to the double door which led into the reception room. He

!" he called

chiavellian qualities, turned to surve

orgot himself. His keen eye saw the little halo of self-satisfaction

, raw-thah!" he drawled, and opened the door leading into the ma

ittle cubby-hole at the other end. But Sam Hupp's plump, keen, good-humored face did not greet him as he entered. The little room was deserted. Frowning, Jock sank into the empty desk chair. He cradle

there. Those conferences were great cauldrons into which the day's business, or the week's, was dumped, to be boiled, simmered, stirred, skimmed,

es came nearer. Then quick footsteps. Jock recognized them. He

rised. Jock's smile widen

as the first time that he had omitte

's face a curious little look

ock, and took

wants to

ged into

d Man wants

w tone, "Look here, son. If he says-" He s

says

Better r

ry? I want to t

r tell

a fellow who had turned his first real trick, why, very well. He fl

ood there waiting his pleasure. When at last he raised his massive head he turned his penetrating pale blue eyes full on Jock. Jock was conscious of a little tremor running through him. People were apt to experience that feeling when that stead

of it," said Bartho

ck's confidence

I stop

the Old Man's desk, his legs wide apart, his face ag

ll,"-he laughed a little ruefully,-"there's something about being shown through a factory that sort of paralyzes my brain. I always feel that I ought to be asking keen, alert, intelligent questions like the ones Kipling always asks, or the Japs when they're taken through the Stock Yards. But I never can think of any. Well, we didn't talk business much. But I could see that they were interested. They seemed to,"-he faltered and blushed a little,-"to like me, you know. I played golf with Snyder that afternoon

." He reached out with one broad freckled hand and turned back the page of a desk

ng of it all. He stared at the massive figure before him, his mouth ludicrously open

he Dowd-but-t

ored what the dramatic critics call a personal h

Berg, th

were not fixed on Jock. They gazed out of the window toward the great white tower toward

w why you fell down on

ck. "Because I'm a double-barreled

t's not the chief one. The real reason why you didn't l

g!" Jock

counts against them. The client he's trying to convince is so taken with him that he actually forgets the business he represents. We

erably, "that the idea was not

t noise that gets the biggest result. The great American hen yields a bigger income than the Steel Trust. Look at Miss Galt. When we have a job that needs a woman's eye d

ock, suddenly, and then st

in a million. Don't ever forget that. They don't turn out

eavy, old. "I suppose," he began, "tha

hand on the boy's shoulder. "It only begins it

cChesney. "Quit! Not

and took Jock McChesney's hand

women-folk before whom he would fain be a hero. He avoided Grace Galt all that long, dreary afternoon. He thought wildly of stayin

the place was very quiet, except for Annie, humming i

gly. He ran through its pages. By force of habit he turned to the back pages. Ads started back at him-clothing ads, paint ads

ason except that he seemed to like the du

ed. How was it in the stories? Oh, yes! The cub always started out on an impossibly dif

little room, then altogether dark. Then an impudent square of yellow from a light turned o

ed and shut. A quick step. Then: "Joc

uth to answer. There issued from his t

k! H

ore he could flick on his own light his mother sto

and-Why, dear! In

ess," muttered Jock. Somehow h

d on his shoulder, and brought his head down gently to her breast. And at that the room, which had been a man's room with its pipe, its tobacco jar, its tie rack filled with cravats of fascinating