Personality Plus | Page 5

Sam Hupp's quick eye swept over the slim, attractive, radiant,
correctly-garbed young figure before him. Unconsciously he rubbed his
bald spot with a rueful hand.
"Know anything about writing, or advertising?"
Jock was at ease immediately. "Quite a lot; yes. I practically rewrote
the Gridiron play that we gave last year, and I was assistant advertising
manager of the college publications for two years. That gives a fellow a
pretty broad knowledge of advertising."
"Oh, Lord!" groaned Sam Hupp, and covered his eyes with his hand, as
if in pain.
Jock stared. The affronted feeling was returning. Sam Hupp recovered
himself and smiled a little wistfully.
"McChesney, when I came up here twelve years ago I got a job as
reception-room usher. A reception-room usher is an office boy in long
pants. Sometimes, when I'm optimistic, I think that if I live twelve
years longer I'll begin to know something about the rudiments of this
game."

"Oh, of course," began Jock, apologetically. But Hupp's glance was
over his head. Involuntarily Jock turned to follow the direction of his
eyes.
"Busy?" said a voice from the doorway.
"Come in, Dutch! Come in!" boomed Hupp.
The man who entered was of the sort that the boldest might well
hesitate to address as "Dutch"--a tall, slim, elegant figure, Van-dyked,
bronzed.
"McChesney, this is Von Herman, head of our art department."
Their hands met in a brief clasp. Von Herman's thoughts were evidently
elsewhere.
"Just wanted to tell you that that cussed model's skipped out. Gone with
a show. Just when I had the whole series blocked out in my mind. He
was a wonder. No brains, but a marvel for looks and style. These
people want real stuff. Don't know how I'm going to give it to them
now."
Hupp sat up. "Got to!" he snapped. "Campaign's late, as it is. Can't you
get an ordinary man model and fake the Greek god beauty?"
"Yes--but it'll look faked. If I could lay my hands on a chap who could
wear clothes as if they belonged to him--"
Hupp rose. "Here's your man," he cried, with a snap of his fingers.
"Clothes! Look at him. He invented 'em. Why, you could photograph
him and he'd look like a drawing."
Von Herman turned, surprised, incredulous, hopeful, his artist eye
brightening at the ease and grace and modishness of the smart,
well-knit figure before him.
"Me!" exploded Jock, his face suffused with a dull, painful red. "Me!
Pose! For a clothing ad!"

"Well," Hupp reminded him, "you said you'd do anything."
Jock McChesney glared belligerently. Hupp returned the stare with a
faint gleam of amusement shining behind the absurd glasses. The
amused look changed to surprise as he beheld the glare in Jock's eyes
fading. For even as he glared there had come a warning to Jock--a
warning sent just in time from that wireless station located in his
subconscious mind. A vivid face, full of pride, and hope, and
encouragement flashed before him.
"Jock," it said, "don't let 'em buffalo you. They'll try it. If they give you
a broom and tell you to sweep down the back stairs--"
Jock was smiling his charming, boyish smile.
"Lead me to your north light," he laughed at Von Herman. "Got any
Robert W. Chambers's heroines tucked away there?"
Hupp's broad hand came down on his shoulder with a thwack. "That's
the spirit, McChesney! That's the--" He stopped, abruptly. "Say, are
you related to Mrs. Emma McChesney, of the Featherloom Skirt
Company?"
"Slightly. She's my one and only mother."
"She--you mean--her son! Well I'll be darned!" He held out his hand to
Jock. "If you're a real son of your mother I wish you'd just call the
office boy as you step down the hall with Von Herman and tell him to
bring me a hammer and a couple of spikes. I'd better nail down my
desk."
"I'll promise not to crowd you for a year or two," grinned Jock from the
doorway, and was off with the pleased Von Herman.
Past the double row of beehives again, into the elevator, out again, up a
narrow iron stairway, into a busy, cluttered, skylighted room. Pictures,
posters, photographs hung all about. Some of the pictures Jock
recognized as old friends that had gazed familiarly at him from subway

trains and street cars and theater programmes. Golf clubs, tennis rackets,
walking sticks, billiard cues were stacked up in corners. And yet there
was a bare and orderly look about the place. Two silent, shirt-sleeved
men were busy at drawing boards. Through a doorway beyond Jock
could see others similarly engaged in the next room. On a platform in
one corner of the room posed a young man in one of those costumes the
coat of which is a mongrel mixture of cutaway and