around. The
thin walls were cracked, the rooms were carpetless. Yet it showed the
care of a good housekeeper. Floors and windows were clean, the cover on
the table spotless. The furnishings were as meagre as they were
ingenious. With their slender purse they had been able to purchase only
the bare necessities--a bed, a chair or two, a dining-room table, a few
kitchen utensils. When they wanted to sit in the parlor they had to
carry a chair from the dining room; when meal times came the chairs had
to travel back again. A soap box turned upside down and neatly covered
with chintz did duty as a dresser in the bedroom, and with a few
photographs and tacks they had managed to impart an aesthetic appearance
to the parlor. This place cost the huge sum of $25 a month. It might
just as well have cost $100 for all Howard's ability to pay it. The past
month's rent was long overdue and the janitor looked more insolent every
day. But they did not care. They were young and life was still before
them.

Presently Annie came in carrying a steaming dish of stew, which she laid
on the table. As she helped Howard to a plate full she said: "So you had
no luck again this morning?"

Howard was too busy eating to answer. As he gulped down a huge piece of
bread, he growled:

"Nothing, as usual--same old story, nothing doing."

Annie sighed. She had been given this answer so often that it would have
surprised her to hear anything else. It meant that their hard
hand-to-mouth struggle must go on. She said nothing. What was the use?
It would never do to discourage Howard. She tried to make light of it.

"Of course it isn't easy, I quite understand that. Never mind, dear.
Something will turn up soon. Where did you go? Whom did you see? Why
didn't you let drink alone when you promised me you would?"

"That was Coxe's fault," blurted out Howard, always ready to blame
others for his own shortcomings. "You remember Coxe! He was at Yale when
I was. A big, fair fellow with blue eyes. He pulled stroke in the
'varsity boat race, you remember?"

"I think I do," replied his wife, indifferently, as she helped him to
more stew. "What did he want? What's he doing in New York?"

"He's got a fine place in a broker's office in Wall Street. I felt
ashamed to let him see me low down like this. He said that I could make
a good deal of money if only I had a little capital. He knows everything
going on in Wall Street. If I went in with him I'd be on Easy Stree