o," says Hartley, grinnin'. "Quite the contrary. Anyway, I knew what
to expect from him. But say, Torchy, I did have a pretty vague notion of
what it costs to run a family these days."

"Don't you read the newspapers?" says I.

"Oh, I suppose I had glanced at the headlines," says Hartley. "And of
course I knew that restaurant prices had gone up, and laundry charges,
and cigarettes and so. But I hadn't shopped for ladies' silk hose, or
for shoes, or--er--robes de nuit, or that sort of thing. And I hadn't
tried to hire a three-room furnished apartment. Honest, it's something
awful."

"Yes, I've heard something like that for quite a spell now," says I.
"Found that your little hundred and fifty a month wouldn't go very far,
did you?"

"Far!" says Hartley. "Why, it was like taking a one-gallon freezer of
ice cream to a Sunday school picnic. Really, it seemed as if there were
a thousand hands reaching out for my pay envelope the moment I got it.
I don't understand how young married couples get along at all."

"If you did," says I, "you'd have a steady job explainin' the miracle to
about 'steen different Congressional committees. How about Edith? Is she
a help--or otherwise?"

"She's a good sport, Edith is," says Hartley. "She keeps me bucked up a
lot. It was her decision that I just passed on to Mr. Piddie. We talked
it all out last night; how impossible it was to live on my present
salary, and what I should say if it wasn't raised. That is, all but the
crude way I put it, and the pin-head part. We agreed, though, that I had
to make a break, and that it might as well be now as later on."

"Well, you've made it," says I. "What now?"

"We've got to think that out," says Hartley.

"The best of luck to you," says I, as he starts toward the elevator.

And with that Hartley drops out. You know how it is here in New York. If
you don't come in on the same train with people you know, or they work
in different buildin's, or patronize some other lunch room, the chances
of your seein' 'em more 'n once in six months are about as good as
though they'd moved to St. Louis or Santa Fe.

I expect I was curious about what was goin' to happen to Hartley and his
candy counter bride, maybe for two or three days. But it must have been
as many weeks before I even heard his name mentioned. That was when old
Z. K. blew into the private office one day and, after a half hour of
business chat, remarks to Old Hickory; "By the way, Ellins, how