_The traveling salesman is a characteristic American type. We laugh at his stories, or we criticise him for his "nerve," but we do not always make allowance for the fact that his life is not an easy one, and that his occupation develops "nerve" just as an athlete's work develops muscle. The best presentation of the traveling salesman in fiction is found in the stories of Edna Ferber. And the fact that her "salesman" is a woman only adds to the interest of the stories. When ex-President Roosevelt read Miss Ferber's book, he wrote her an enthusiastic letter telling her how much he admired Emma McChesney. We meet her in the first words of this story_. HIS MOTHER'S SON BY EDNA FERBER "Full?" repeated Emma McChesney (and if it weren't for the compositor there'd be an exclamation point after that question mark). "Sorry, Mrs. McChesney," said the clerk, and he actually looked it, "but there's absolutely nothing stirring. We're full up. The Benevolent Brotherhood of Bisons is holding its regular annual state convention here. We're putting up cots in the hall." Emma McChesney's keen blue eyes glanced up from their inspection of the little bunch of mail which had just been handed her. "Well, pick out a hall with a southern exposure and set up a cot or so for me," she said, agreeably, "because I've come to stay. After selling Featherloom Petticoats on the road for ten years I don't see myself trailing up and down this town looking for a place to lay my head. I've learned this one large, immovable truth, and that is, that a hotel clerk is a hotel clerk. It makes no difference whether he is stuck back of a marble pillar and hidden by a gold vase full of thirty-six-inch American Beauty roses at the Knickerbocker, or setting the late fall fashions for men in Galesburg, Illinois." By one small degree was the perfect poise of the peerless personage behind the register jarred. But by only one. He was a hotel night clerk. "It won't do you any good to get sore, Mrs. McChesney," he began, suavely. "Now a man would----" "But I'm not a man," interrupted Emma McChesney. "I'm only doing a man's work and earning a man's salary and demanding to be treated with as much consideration as you'd show a man." The personage busied himself mightily with a pen, and a blotter, and sundry papers, as is the manner of personages when annoyed. "I'd like to accommodate you; I'd like to do it." "Cheer up," said Emma McChesney, "you're going to. I don't mind a little discomfort. Though I want to mention in passing that if there are any lady Bisons present you needn't bank on doubling me up with them. I've had one experience of that kind. It was in Albia, Iowa. I'd sleep in the kitchen range before I'd go through another." Up went the erstwhile falling poise. "You're badly mistaken, madam. I'm a member of this order myself, and a finer lot of fellows it has never been my pleasure to know."