ow to cling to her husband
"for better for worse," and therefore not to be questioned. In times of
peace she remembered not the days of storm and stress. Once indeed, when
her best gingham had been sacrificed to the furies of war, she had
considered whether the indefinite multiplication of the tribe of Riley
were in the long run desirable, and had put it to the young woman from the
Bureau, who was superintending the repair of the stove top, this way: "I
am thinking, Miss Kane, if I will live with Mr. Riley any longer; would
you?"--to the blushing confusion of that representative of the social
order. However, that crisis passed. Mr. Riley took the pledge for the
fourth or fifth time, and the next day appeared at the office,
volunteering to assign himself and his earnings to the Bureau for the
benefit of his wife and his creditors, reserving only enough for luncheons
and tobacco, but nothing for drinks. The Bureau took an hour off to
recover from the shock. If it had misgivings, it refused to listen to
them. The world had turned a corner in the city by the lake and was on the
home-stretch: Mr. Riley had reformed.

And, in truth, so it seemed. For once he was as good as his word.
Christmas passed, and the manifold temptations of New Year, with Mike and
his father still chums. Kate was improving the chance to profit by the
school-learning so fatally interrupted in other days. Seventeen weeks went
by with Mr. Riley's wages paid in at the Bureau every Saturday; the grocer
smiled a fat welcome to the Riley children, the clock man and the spring
man and the other installment collectors had ceased to be importunate.
Mrs. Riley was having blissful visions of a new spring hat. Life back of
the stock-yards was in a way of becoming ordinary and slow, when the fatal
twenty-second of February hove in sight.

The night before, Mr. Riley, quitting work, met a friend at the gate, who,
pitying his penniless state, informed him that "there was the price of a
drink at the corner" for him, meaning at Quinlan's saloon. Now this was
prodding the meat-cutter in a tender spot. He hated waste as much as his
employers, who proverbially exploited all of the pig but the squeal. He
didn't want the drink, but to have it waiting there with no one to come
for it was wicked waste. It was his clear duty to save it, and he did.
Among those drinking at the bar were some of his fellow-workmen, who stood
treat. That called for a return, and Riley's credit was