That did away with Jo's Thursday dinner. Then Stell's husband bought a
car. They went out into the country every Sunday. Stell said it was
getting so that maids objected to Sunday dinners, anyway. Besides, they
were unhealthy, old-fashioned things. They always meant to ask Jo to
come along, but by the time their friends were placed, and the lunch,
and the boxes, and sweaters, and George's camera, and everything, there
seemed to be no room for a man of Jo's bulk. So that eliminated the
Sunday dinners.

"Just drop in any time during the week," Stell said, "for dinner. Except
Wednesday--that's our bridge night--and Saturday. And, of course,
Thursday. Cook is out that night. Don't wait for me to phone."

And so Jo drifted into that sad-eyed, dyspeptic family made up of those
you see dining in second-rate restaurants, their paper propped up
against the bowl of oyster crackers, munching solemnly and with
indifference to the stare of the passer-by surveying them through the
brazen plate-glass window.

And then came the War. The war that spelled death and destruction to
millions. The war that brought a fortune to Jo Hertz, and transformed
him, over night, from a baggy-kneed old bachelor, whose business was a
failure, to a prosperous manufacturer whose only trouble was the
shortage in hides for the making of his product--leather! The armies of
Europe called for it. Harnesses! More harnesses! Straps! Millions of
straps. More! More!

The musty old harness business over on Lake Street was magically changed
from a dust-covered, dead-alive concern to an orderly hive that hummed
and glittered with success. Orders poured in. Jo Hertz had inside