“You mean you want Mrs. McChesney's territory?” he asked quietly.
“Well, yes, I do,” confessed Ed Meyers, without a blush.
Young T. A. swung back to his desk, tore from the pad before him the piece of paper on which he had been scrawling, crushed it, and tossed it into the wastebasket with an air of finality.
“Take the second elevator down,” he said. “The nearest one's out of order.”
For a moment Ed Meyers stared, his fat face purpling. “Oh, very well,” he said, rising. “I just made you a business proposition, that's all. I thought I was talking to a business man. Now, old T. A.—”
“That'll be about all,” observed T. A. Junior, from his desk.
Ed Meyers started toward the door. Then he paused, turned, and came back to his chair. His heavy jaw jutted out threateningly.
“No, it ain't all, either. I didn't want to mention it, and if you'd treated me like a gentleman, I wouldn't have. But I want to say to you that McChesney's giving this firm a black eye. Morals don't figure with a man on the road, but when a woman breaks into this game, she's got to be on the level.”
T. A. Junior rose. The blonde stenographer who had made the admiring remark anent his eyes would have appreciated those features now. They glowed luminously into Ed Meyers' pale blue ones until that gentleman dropped his eyelids in confusion. He seemed at a disadvantage in 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 he has on the road. Before you go any further I want to tell you that you'll have to prove what you just implied, so definitely, and conclusively, and convincingly that when you finish you'll have an ordinary engineering blue-print looking like a Turner landscape. Begin.”
Ed Meyers, still standing, clutched his derby tightly and began.