"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. 

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