at the minute-hand of the
eviscerated Mission clock. His wife almost never took the trouble to
argue with him.

"You're old style, Percy," she went on. "Of course everybody marries
and wishes they hadn't, but nowadays people get over it. Some women
go ahead on the quiet, but I'm giving it to you straight. I'm going
to work for Greengay. I like his line of business, and I meet people
well. Now I'm going to the Burks'."

Percy dropped his hands limply between his knees.

"I suppose," he brought out, "the real trouble is that you've
decided my earning power is not very great."

"That's part of it, and part of it is you're old-fashioned." Stella
paused at the door and looked back. "What made you rush me, anyway,
Percy?" she asked indulgently. "What did you go and pretend to be a
spender and get tied up with me for?"

"I guess everybody wants to be a spender when he's in love," Percy
replied.

Stella shook her head mournfully.

"No, you're a spender or you're not. Greengay has been broke three
times, fired, down and out, black-listed. But he's always come back,
and he always will. You will never be fired, but you'll always be
poor." She turned and looked back again before she went out.

* * * * *

Six months later Bixby came to young Oliver Remsen one afternoon and
said he would like to have twenty dollars a week held out of his pay
until his debt was cleared off.

Oliver looked up at his sallow employee and asked him how he could
spare as much as that.

"My expenses are lighter," Bixby replied. "My wife has gone into
business with a ready-to-wear firm. She is not living with me any
more."

Oliver looked annoyed, and asked him if nothing could be done to
readjust his domestic affairs. Bixby said no; they would probably
remain as they were.

"But where are you living, Bixby? How have you arranged things?" the
young man asked impatiently.

"I'm very comfortable. I live in a boarding-house and have my own
furniture. There are several fellows there who are fixed the same
way. Their wives went back into business, and they drifted apart."

With a baffled expression Remsen stared at the uneven shoulders
under the skin-fitting alpaca desk coat as his bookkeeper went out.
He had meant to do something for Percy, but somehow, he reflected,
one never did do anything for a fellow who had been stung as hard as
that.

_Century_, May 1916