Personality Plus

A free download from http://www.dertz.in


Personality Plus

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Personality Plus, by Edna Ferber This
eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no
restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
Title: Personality Plus Some Experiences of Emma McChesney and
Her Son, Jock
Author: Edna Ferber
Release Date: June 22, 2004 [EBook #12677]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK
PERSONALITY PLUS ***

Produced by Janet Kegg and the Project Gutenberg Distributed
Proofreading Team

[Illustration: "'What is this anyway? A George Cohan comedy?'"]

PERSONALITY PLUS
SOME EXPERIENCES OF EMMA McCHESNEY AND HER SON,
JOCK
By
EDNA FERBER
AUTHOR OF "DAWN O'HARA," "BUTTERED SIDE DOWN,"
"ROAST BEEF, MEDIUM," ETC.
WITH FIFTEEN ILLUSTRATIONS BY JAMES MONTGOMERY
FLAGG
NEW YORK FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY 1914

CONTENTS
CHAPTER I.
MAKING GOOD WITH MOTHER
II. PERSONALITY PLUS
III. DICTATED BUT NOT READ
IV. THE MAN WITHIN HIM
V. THE SELF-STARTER

ILLUSTRATIONS
"'What is this anyway? A George Cohan comedy?'" Frontispiece
"'You're a jealous blond,' he laughed"

"He was the concentrated essence of do-it-now"
"'Hi! Hold that pose!' called Von Herman"
"With a jolt Jock realized she had forgotten all about him"
"'Well, raw-thah!' he drawled"
"... became in some miraculous way a little boy again"
"Jock McChesney began to carry a yellow walking stick down to work"
"'Good Lord, Mother! Of course you don't mean it, but--'"
"'Greetings!'"
"She laid one hand very lightly on his arm and looked up into the sullen,
angry young face"
"He made straight for the main desk with its battalion of clerks"
"'Let's not waste any time,' he said"
"He found his mother on the floor ... surrounded by piles of pajamas,
socks, shirts and collars"
"'Well, you said you wanted somebody to worry about, didn't you?'"

PERSONALITY PLUS

I
MAKING GOOD WITH MOTHER
When men began to build cities vertically instead of horizontally there
passed from our highways a picturesque figure, and from our language

an expressive figure of speech. That oily-tongued, persuasive,
soft-stepping stranger in the rusty Prince Albert and the black string tie
who had been wont to haunt our back steps and front offices with his
carefully wrapped bundle, retreated in bewildered defeat before the
clanging blows of steel on steel that meant the erection of the first
twenty-story skyscraper. "As slick," we used to say, "as a lightning-rod
agent." Of what use his wares on a building whose tower was robed in
clouds and which used the chain lightning for a necklace? The Fourth
Avenue antique dealer had another curio to add to his collection of
andirons, knockers, snuff boxes and warming pans.
But even as this quaint figure vanished there sprang up a new and
glittering one to take his place. He stood framed in the great plate-glass
window of the very building which had brought about the defeat of his
predecessor. A miracle of close shaving his face was, and a marvel of
immaculateness his linen. Dapper he was, and dressy, albeit inclined to
glittering effects and a certain plethory at the back of the neck. Back of
him stood shining shapes that reflected his glory in enamel, and brass,
and glass. His language was floral, but choice; his talk was of gearings
and bearings and cylinders and magnetos; his method differed from that
of him who went before as the method of a skilled aëronaut differs
from that of the man who goes over Niagara in a barrel. And as he
multiplied and spread over the land we coined a new figure of speech.
"Smooth!" we chuckled. "As smooth as an automobile salesman."
But even as we listened, fascinated by his fluent verbiage there grew
within us a certain resentment. Familiarity with his glittering wares
bred a contempt of them, so that he fell to speaking of them as
necessities instead of luxuries. He juggled figures, and thought nothing
of four of them in a row. We looked at our five-thousand-dollar salary,
so strangely shrunken and thin now, and even as we looked we saw that
the method of the unctuous, anxious stranger had become antiquated in
its turn.
Then from his ashes emerged a new being. Neither urger nor
spellbinder he. The twentieth century was stamped across his brow, and
on his lips was ever the word "Service." Silent, courteous, watchful,

alert, he listened, while you talked. His method, in turn, made that of
the silk-lined salesman sound like the hoarse hoots of the ballyhoo man
at a county fair. Blithely he accepted five hundred thousand dollars and
gave in return--a promise. And