Part 4 (1/2)

”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-b.u.t.ton, 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 pa.s.sed. Her heart sank. Then Senor Pages threw back his fine head and laughed--laughed as the Latin laughs, emphasizing his mirth with many e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns 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:

DEAR T. A.:

They've fallen for Featherlooms the way an Eskimo takes to gum-drops.

My letter of credit is all shot to pieces, but it was worth it. They make you pay a separate license fee in each province, and South America is just one darn province after another. If they'd lump a peddler's license for $5,000 and tell you to go ahead, it would be cheaper.

I landed Pages y Hernandez by a trick. The best of it is the man I played it on saw the point and laughed with me. We North Americans brag too much about our sense of humor.

I thought ten years on the road had hardened me to the most fiendish efforts of a hotel chef. But the food at the Grande here makes a quarter-inch round steak with German fried look like Sherry's latest triumph. You know I'm not fussy. I'm the kind of woman who, given her choice of ice cream or cheese for dessert, will take cheese. Here, given my choice, I play safe and take neither. I've reached the point where I make a meal of radishes. They kill their beef in the morning and serve it for lunch. It looks and tastes like an Ethiop's ear. But I don't care, because I'm getting gorgeously thin.

If the radishes hold out I'll invade Central America and Panama. I've one eye on Valparaiso already. I know it sounds wild, but it means a future and a fortune for Featherlooms. I find I don't even have to talk skirts. They're self-sellers. But I have to talk honesty and packing.

How did you hit it off with Ella Sweeney? Haven't seen a sign of Fat Ed Meyers. I'm getting nervous. Do you think he may have exploded at the equator?

EMMA.

But kind fortune saw fit to add a last sweet drop to Emma McChesney's already br.i.m.m.i.n.g cup. As she reached the docks on the day of her departure, clad in cool, crisp white from hat to shoes, her quick eye spied a red-faced, rotund, familiar figure disembarking from the New York boat, just arrived. The fates, grinning, had planned this moment like a stage-manager. Fat Ed Meyers came heavily down the gangplank.

His hat was off. He was mopping the top of his head with a large, damp handkerchief. His gaze swept over the busy landing-docks, darted hither and thither, alighted on Emma McChesney with a shock, and rested there. A distinct little shock went through that lady, too. But she waited at the foot of her boat's gangway until the unbelievably nimble Meyers reached her.

He was a fiery spectacle. His cheeks were distended, his eyes protuberant. He wasted no words. They understood each other, those two.

”Coming or going?”

”Going,” replied Emma McChesney.

”Clean up this--this Bonez Areez, too?”

”Absolutely.”

”Did, huh?”

Meyers stood a moment panting, his little eyes glaring into her calm ones.

”Well, I beat you in Bahia, anyway.” he boasted.

Emma McChesney snapped her fingers blithely.