"Sam is the manager," interrupted Mrs. McChesney pleasantly, "and he
thinks he does the buying, but the brains of that business is a little
girl named Sadie Harris. She's a wonder. Five years from now, if she
doesn't marry Sam, she'll be one of those ten-thousand-a-year foreign
buyers. Play your samples up to Sammy, but quote your prices down to
Sadie. Read the next one, T. A."
Buck read on, his tone lifeless:
"Miss Sharp. Berg Brothers, Omaha. Strictly business. Known among
the trade as the human cactus. Canceled a ten-thousand-dollar order
once because the grateful salesman called her 'girlie.' Stick to
skirts."
Buck slapped the book smartly against the palm of his hand.
"Do you mean to tell me that you made this book out for me? Do you
mean to say that I have to cram on this like a kid studying for exams?
That I'll have to cater to the personality of the person I'm selling
to? Why--it's--it's----"
Emma McChesney nodded calmly.
"I don't know how this trip of yours is going to affect the firm's
business, T. A. But it's going to be a liberal education for you.
You'll find that you'll need that little book a good many times before
you're through. And while you're following its advice, do this: forget
that your name is Buck, except for business purposes; forget that your
family has always lived in a brownstone mausoleum in Seventy-second
street; forget that you like your chops done just so, and your wine at
such-and-such a temperature; get close to your trade. They're an
awfully human lot, those Middle Western buyers. Don't chuck them under
the chin, but smile on 'em. And you've got a lovely smile, T. A."
Buck looked up from the little leather book. And, as he gazed at Emma
McChesney, the smile appeared and justified its praise.
"I'll have this to comfort me, anyway, Emma. I'll know that while I'm
smirking on the sprightly Miss Sweeney, your face will be undergoing
various agonizing twists in the effort to make American prices
understood by an Argentine who can't speak anything but Spanish."
"Maybe I am short on Spanish, but I'm long on Featherlooms. I may not
know a senora from a chili con carne, but I know Featherlooms from the
waistband to the hem." She leaned forward, dimpling like fourteen
instead of forty. "And you've noticed--haven't you, T. A.?--that I've
got an expressive countenance."
Buck leaned forward, too. His smile was almost gone.
"I've noticed a lot of things, Emma McChesney. And if you persist in
deviling me for one more minute, I'm going to mention a few."
Emma McChesney surveyed her cleared desk, locked the top drawer with a
snap, and stood up.
"If you do I'll miss my boat. Just time to make Brooklyn. Suppose you
write 'em."
That Ed Meyers might know nothing of her sudden plans, she had kept the
trip secret. Besides Buck and the office staff, her son Jock was the
only one who knew. But she found her cabin stocked like a prima
donna's on a farewell tour. There were boxes of flowers, a package of
books, baskets of fruit, piles of magazines, even a neat little sheaf
of telegrams, one from the faithful bookkeeper, one from the workroom
foreman, two from salesmen long in the firm's employ, two from Jock in
Chicago. She read them, her face glowing. He and Buck had vied with
each other in supplying her with luxuries that would make pleasanter
the twenty-three days of her voyage.
She looked about the snug cabin, her eyes suddenly misty. Buck poked
his head in at the door.
"Come on up on deck, Emma; I've only a few minutes left."
She snatched a pink rose from the box, and together they went on deck.
"Just ten minutes," said Buck. He was looking down at her. "Remember,
Emma, nothing that concerns the firm's business, however big, is half
as important as the things that concern you personally, however small.
I realize what this trip will mean to us, if it pans, and if you can
beat Meyers to it. But if anything should happen to you, why----"
"Nothing's going to happen, T. A., except that I'll probably come home
with my complexion ruined. I'll feel a great deal more at home talking
pidgin-English to Senor Alvarez in Buenos Aires than you will talking
Featherlooms to Miss Skirt-Buyer in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. But remember
this, T. A.: When you get to know--really to know--the Sadie Harrises
and the Sammy Blochs and the Ella Sweeneys of this world, you've
learned just about all there is to know about human beings. Quick--the
gangplank! Goodby, T. A."
The dock reached, he gazed up at her as she leaned far over the
railing. He made a megaphone of his hands.
"I feel like an old maid who's staying home with her knitting," he
called.
The boat began to move. Emma McChesney passed a quick hand over her
eyes.
"Don't drop any stitches, T. A." With unerring aim she flung the big
pink rose straight at him.
She went about arranging her affairs on the boat like the business
woman that she was. First she made her cabin shipshape. She placed
nearest at hand the books on South America, and the Spanish-American
pocket interpreter. She located her deck chair, and her seat in the
dining-room. Then, quietly, unobtrusively, and guided by those years
spent in meeting men and women face to face in business, she took
thorough, conscientious mental stock of those others who were to be her
fellow travelers for twenty-three days.
For the most part, the first-class passengers were men. There were
American business men--salesmen, some of them, promoters others, or
representatives of big syndicates shrewd, alert, well dressed, smooth
shaven. Emma McChesney knew that she would gain valuable information
from many of them before the trip was over. She sighed a little
regretfully as she thought of those smoking-room talks--those intimate,
tobacco-mellowed business talks from which she would be barred by her
sex.
There were two engineers, one British, one American, both very
intelligent-looking, both inclined to taciturnity, as is often the case
in men of their profession. They walked a good deal, and smoked
nut-brown, evil-smelling pipes, and stared unblinkingly across the
water.
There were Argentines--whole families of them--Brazilians, too. The
fat, bejeweled Brazilian men eyed Emma McChesney with open approval,
even talked to her, leering objectionably. Emma McChesney refused to
be annoyed. Her ten years on the road served her in good stead now.
But most absorbing of all to Emma McChesney, watching quietly over her
book or magazine, was a tall, erect, white-bearded Argentine who, with
his family, occupied chairs near hers. His name had struck her with
the sound of familiarity when she read it on the passenger list. She
had asked the deck-steward to point out the name's owner. "Pages," she
repeated to herself, worriedly, "Pages? P----" Suddenly she knew.
Pages y Hernandez, the owner of the great Buenos Aires shop--a shop
finer than those of Paris. And this was Pages! All the Featherloom
instinct in Emma McChesney came to the surface and stayed there,
seething.
That was the morning of the second day out. By afternoon, she had
bribed and maneuvered so that her deck chair was next that of the
Pages-family flock of chairs. Senor Pages reminded her of one of those
dashing, white-haired, distinguished-looking men whose likeness graces
the cover of a box of your favorite cigars.
General Something-or-other-ending-in-z he should have been, with a
revolutionary background. He dressed somberly in black, like most of
the other Argentine men on board. There was Senora Pages, very fat,
very indolent, very blank, much given to pink satin and diamonds at
dinner. Senorita Pages, over-powdered, overfrizzed, marvelously
gowned, with overplumpness just a few years away, sat quietly by Senora
Pages' side, but her darting, flashing, restless eyes were never still.
The son (Emma heard them call him Pepe) was barely eighteen, she
thought, but quite a man of the world, with his cigarettes, his drinks,
his bold eyes. She looked at his sallow, pimpled skin, his lean, brown
hands, his lack-luster eyes, and she thought of Jock and was happy.
Mrs. McChesney knew that she might visit the magnificent Buenos Aires
shop of Pages y Hernandez day after day for months without ever
obtaining a glimpse of either Pages or Hernandez. And here was Senor
Pages, so near that she could reach out and touch him from her deck
chair. Here was opportunity! A caller who had never been obliged to
knock twice at Emma McChesney's door.
Her methods were so simple that she herself smiled at them. She donned
her choicest suit of white serge that she had been saving for shore
wear. Its skirt had been cut by the very newest trick. Its coat was
the kind to make you go home and get out your own white serge and gaze
at it with loathing. Senorita Pages' eyes leaped to that suit as iron
leaps to the magnet. Emma McChesney, passing her deck chair, detached
the eyes with a neat smile. Why hadn't she spent six months neglecting
Skirts for Spanish? she asked herself, groaning. As she approached her
own deck chair again she risked a bright, "Good morning." Her heart
bounded, stood still, bounded again, as from the lips of the assembled
Pages there issued a combined, courteous, perfectly good American,
"Good morning!"
"You speak English!" Emma McChesney's tone expressed flattery and
surprise.
Pages pere made answer.
"Ah, yes, it is necessary. There are many English in Argentina."
A sigh--a fluttering, tremulous sigh of perfect peace and
happiness--welled up from Emma McChesney's heart and escaped through
her smiling lips.
By noon, Senorita Pages had tried on the fascinating coat and secured
the address of its builder. By afternoon, Emma McChesney was showing
the newest embroidery stitch to the slow but docile Senora Pages. Next
morning she was playing shuffleboard with the elegant, indolent Pepe,
and talking North American football and baseball to him. She had not
been Jock McChesney's mother all those years for nothing. She could
discuss sports with the best of them. Young Pages was avidly
interested. Outdoor sports had become the recent fashion among the
rich young Argentines.
The problem of papa Pages was not so easy. Emma McChesney approached
her subject warily, skirting the bypaths of politics, war, climate,
customs--to business. Business!
"But a lady as charming as you can understand nothing of business,"
said Senor Pages. "Business is for your militant sisters."
"But we American women do understand business. Many--many charming
American women are in business."
Senor Pages turned his fine eyes upon her. She had talked most
interestingly, this pretty American woman.
"Perhaps--but pardon me if I think not. A woman cannot be really
charming and also capable in business."
Emma McChesney dimpled becomingly.
"But I know a woman who is as--well, as charming as you say I am.
Still, she is known as a capable, successful business woman. She'll
be in Buenos Aires when I am."
Senor Pages shook an unbelieving head. Emma McChesney leaned forward.
"Will you let me bring her in to meet you, just to prove my point?"
"She must be as charming as you are." His Argentine betting
proclivities rose. "Here; we shall make a wager!" He took a card from
his pocket, scribbled on it, handed it to Emma McChesney. "You will
please present that to my secretary, who will conduct you immediately
to my office. We will pretend it is a friendly call. Your friend need
not know. If I lose----"
"If you lose, you must promise to let her show you her sample line."
"But, dear madam, I do no buying."
"Then you must introduce her favorably to the department buyer of her
sort of goods."
"But if I win?" persisted Senor Pages.
"If she isn't as charming as--as you say I am, you may make your own
terms."
Senor Pages' fine eyes opened wide.
It was on the fourteenth day of their trip that they came into quaint
Bahia. The stay there was short. Brazilian business methods are
long. Emma McChesney took no chances with sample-trunks or cases. She
packed her three leading samples into her own personal suitcase, eluded
the other tourists, secured an interpreter, and prepared to brave
Bahia. She returned just in time to catch the boat, flushed, tired,
and orderless. Bahia would have none of her.
In three days they would reach Rio de Janeiro, the magnificent. They
would have three days there. She told herself that Bahia didn't count,
anyway--sleepy little half-breed town! But the arrow rankled. It had
been the first to penetrate the armor of her business success. But she
had learned things from that experience at Bahia. She had learned that
the South American dislikes the North American because his Northern
cousin patronizes him. She learned that the North American business
firm is thought by the Southern business man to be tricky and
dishonest, and that, because the Northerner has not learned how to pack
a case of goods scientifically, as have the English, Germans, and
French, the South American rages to pay cubic-feet rates on boxes that
are three-quarters empty.
So it was with a heavy heart but a knowing head that she faced Rio de
Janeiro. They had entered in the evening, the sunset splashing the bay
and the hills in the foreground and the Sugar-loaf Mountain with an
unbelievable riot of crimson and gold and orange and blue. Suddenly
the sun jerked down, as though pulled by a string, and the magic purple
night came up as though pulled by another.
"Well, anyway, I've seen that," breathed Emma McChesney thankfully.
Next morning, she packed her three samples, as before, her heart heavy,
her mind on Fat Ed Meyers coming up two weeks behind her. Three days in
Rio! And already she had bumped her impatient, quick-thinking,
quick-acting North American business head up against the stone wall of
South American leisureliness and prejudice. She meant no irreverence,
no impiety as she prayed, meanwhile packing Nos. 79, 65, and 48 into
her personal bag:
"O Lord, let Fat Ed Meyers have Bahia; but please, please help me to
land Rio and Buenos Aires!"
Then, in smart tailored suit and hat, interpreter in tow, a prayer in
her heart, and excitement blazing in cheeks and eyes, she made her way
to the dock, through the customs, into a cab that was to take her to
her arena, the broad Avenida.
Exactly two hours later, there dashed into the customs-house a
well-dressed woman whose hat was very much over one ear. She was
running as only a woman runs when she's made up her mind to get there.
She came hot-foot, helter-skelter, regardless of modishly crippling
skirt, past officers, past customs officials, into the section where
stood the one small sample-trunk that she had ordered down in case of
emergency. The trunk had not gone through the customs. It had not
even been opened. But Emma McChesney heeded not trifles like that.
Rio de Janeiro had fallen for Featherlooms. Those three samples, Nos.
79, 65, and 48, that boasted style, cut, and workmanship never before
seen in Rio, had turned the trick. They were as a taste of blood to a
hungry lion. Rio wanted more!
Emma McChesney was kneeling before her trunk, had whipped out her key,
unlocked it, and was swiftly selecting the numbers wanted from the
trays, her breath coming quickly, her deft fingers choosing unerringly,
when an indignant voice said, in Portuguese, "It is forbidden!"
Emma McChesney did not glance around. Her head was buried in the
depths of the trunk. But her quick ears had caught the word, "PROHIBA!"
"Speak English," she said, and went on unpacking.
"INGLES!" shouted the official. "No!" Then, with a superhuman effort,
as Emma McChesney stood up, her arms laden with Featherloom samples of
rainbow hues, "PARE! Ar-r-r-rest!"
Mrs. McChesney slammed down the trunk top, locked it, clutched her
samples firmly, and faced the enraged official.
"Go 'way! I haven't time to be arrested this morning. This is my busy
day. Call around this evening."
Whereupon she fled to her waiting cab, leaving behind her a Brazilian
official stunned and raging by turns.
When she returned, happy, triumphant, order-laden, he was standing
there, stunned no longer but raging still. Emma McChesney had
forgotten all about him. The gold-braided official advanced,
mustachios bristling. A volley of Portuguese burst from his long-pent
lips. Emma McChesney glanced behind her. Her interpreter threw up
helpless hands, replying with a still more terrifying burst of vowels.
Bewildered, a little frightened, Mrs. McChesney stood helplessly by.
The official laid a none too gentle hand on her shoulder. A little
group of lesser officials stood, comic-opera fashion, in the
background. And then Emma McChesney's New York training came to her
aid. She ignored the voluble interpreter. She remained coolly
unruffled by the fusillade of Portuguese. Quietly she opened her hand
bag and plunged her fingers deep, deep therein. Her blue eyes gazed
confidingly up into the Brazilian's snapping black ones, and as she
withdrew her hand from the depths of her purse, there passed from her
white fingers to his brown ones that which is the Esperanto of the
nations, the universal language understood from Broadway to Brazil.
The hand on her shoulder relaxed and fell away.
On deck once more, she encountered the suave Senor Pages. He stood at
the rail surveying Rio's shores with that lip-curling contempt of the
Argentine for everything Brazilian. He regarded Emma McChesney's
radiant face.
"You are pleased with this--this Indian Rio?"
Mrs. McChesney paused to gaze with him at the receding shores.
"Like it! I'm afraid I haven't seen it. From here it looks like
Coney. But it buys like Seattle. Like it! Well, I should say I do!"
"Ah, senora," exclaimed Pages, distressed, "wait! In six days you will
behold Buenos Aires. Your New York, Londres, Paris--bah! You shall
drive with my wife and daughter through Palermo. You shall see jewels,
motors, toilettes as never before. And you will visit my
establishment?" He raised an emphatic forefinger. "But surely!"
Emma McChesney regarded him solemnly.
"I promise to do that. You may rely on me."
Six days later they swept up the muddy and majestic Plata, whose color
should have won it the name of River of Gold instead of River of
Silver. From the boat's upper deck, Emma McChesney beheld a sky line
which was so like the sky line of her own New York that it gave her a
shock. She was due for still another shock when, an hour later, she
found herself in a maelstrom of motors, cabs, street cars, newsboys,
skyscrapers, pedestrians, policemen, subway stations. Where was the
South American languor? Where the Argentine inertia? The rush and
roar of it, the bustle and the bang of it made the twenty-three-day
voyage seem a myth.
"I'm going to shut my eyes," she told herself, "and then open them
quickly. If that little brown traffic-policeman turns out to be a big,
red-faced traffic-policeman, then I'm right, and this IS Broadway and
Forty-second."
Shock number three came upon her entrance at the Grande Hotel. It had
been Emma McChesney's boast that her ten years on the road had
familiarized her with every type, grade, style, shape, cut, and mold of
hotel clerk. She knew him from the Knickerbocker to the Eagle House at
Waterloo, Iowa. At the moment she entered the Grande Hotel, she knew
she had overlooked one. Accustomed though she was to the sartorial
splendors of the man behind the desk, she might easily have mistaken
this one for the president of the republic. In his glittering uniform,
he looked a pass between the supreme chancellor of the K.P.'s in full
regalia and a prince of India during the Durbar. He was regal. He was
overwhelming. He would have made the most splendid specimen of North
American hotel clerk look like a scullery boy. Mrs. McChesney spent
two whole days in Buenos Aires before she discovered that she could
paralyze this personage with a peso. A peso is forty-three cents.
Her experience at Bahia and at Rio de Janeiro had taught her things.
So for two days, haunted, as she was, by visions of Fat Ed Meyers
coming up close behind her, she possessed her soul in patience and
waited. On the great firm of Pages y Hernandez rested the success of
this expedition. When she thought of her little trick on Senor Pages,
her blithe spirits sank. Suppose, after all, that this powerful South
American should resent her little Yankee joke!
Her trunks went through the customs. She secured an interpreter. She
arranged her samples with loving care. Style, cut, workmanship--she
ran over their strong points in her mind. She looked at them as a
mother's eyes rest fondly on the shining faces, the well-brushed hair,
the clean pinafores of her brood. And her heart swelled with pride.
They lay on their tables, the artful knickerbockers, the gleaming
petticoats, the pink and blue pajamas, the bifurcated skirts. Emma
McChesney ran one hand lightly over the navy blue satin folds of a
sample.
"Pages or no Pages, you're a credit to your mother," she said,
whimsically.
Up in her room once more, she selected her smartest tailor costume, her
most modish hat, the freshest of gloves and blouses.
She chose the hours between four and six, when wheel traffic was
suspended in the Calle Florida and throughout the shopping-district,
the narrow streets of which are congested to the point of suffocation
at other times.
As she swung down the street they turned to gaze after her--these
Argentines. The fat senoras turned, and the smartly costumed, sallow
senoritas, and the men--all of them. They spoke to her, these last,
but she had expected that, and marched on with her free, swinging
stride, her chin high, her color very bright. Into the great shop of
Pages y Hernandez at last, up to the private offices, her breath coming
a little quickly, into the presence of the shiny secretary--shiny
teeth, shiny hair, shiny skin, shiny nails. He gazed upon Emma
McChesney, the shine gleaming brighter. He took in his slim, brown
fingers the card on which Senor Pages had scribbled that day on board
ship. The shine became dazzling. He bowed low and backed his way into
the office of Senor Pages.
A successful man is most impressive when in those surroundings which
have been built up by his success. On shipboard, Senor Pages had been
a genial, charming, distinguished fellow passenger. In his luxurious
business office he still was genial, charming, but his environment
seemed to lend him a certain austerity.
"Senora McChesney!"
("How awful that sounds!" Emma McChesney told herself.)
"We spoke of you but last night. And now you come to win the wager,
yes?" He smiled, but shook his head.
"Yes," replied Emma McChesney. And tried to smile, too.
Senor Pages waved a hand toward the outer office.
"She is with you, this business friend who is also so charming?"
"Oh, yes," said Emma McChesney, "she's--she's with me." Then, as he
made a motion toward the push-button, which would summon the secretary:
"No, don't do that! Wait a minute!" From her bag she drew her business
card, presented it. "Read that first."
Senor Pages read it. He looked up. Then he read it again. He gazed
again at Emma McChesney. Emma McChesney looked straight at him and
tried in vain to remember ever having heard of the South American's
sense of humor. A moment passed. Her heart sank. Then Senor Pages
threw back his fine head and laughed--laughed as the Latin laughs,
emphasizing his mirth with many ejaculations and gestures.
"Ah, you Northerners! You are too quick for us. Come; I myself must
see this garment which you honor by selling." His glance rested
approvingly on Emma McChesney's trim, smart figure. "That which you
sell, it must be quite right."
"I not only sell it," said Emma McChesney; "I wear it."
"That--how is it you Northerners say?--ah, yes--that settles it!"
Six weeks later, in his hotel room in Columbus, Ohio, T. A. Buck sat
reading a letter forwarded from New York and postmarked Argentina. As
he read he chuckled, grew serious, chuckled again and allowed his cigar
to grow cold.
For the seventh time: