fact is--I need twenty a week. My expenses are arranged on that scale. I'm
not clever at money matters. I'm afraid I'd get in a mess with only
fifteen."

"My dear young man," said Mr. King, "I started here at fifteen dollars a
week. And I had a wife; and the first baby was coming."

"Yes, but your wife was an energetic woman. She stood right beside you and
worked too. Now I have only myself."

Mr. King raised his eyebrows and became a rosier red. He was evidently
preparing to rebuke this audacious intrusion into his private affairs by a
stranger whose card had been handed to him not ten minutes before. But
Howard's tone and manner were simple and sincere. And they happened to
bring into Mr. King's mind a rush of memories of his youth and his wife.
She had married him on faith. They had come to New York fifteen years
before, he to get a place as reporter on the _News-Record_, she to
start a boarding-house; he doubting and trembling, she with courage and
confidence for two. He leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes and opened
the book of memory at the place where the leaves most easily fell apart:

He is coming home at one in the morning, worn out, sick at heart from the
day's buffetings. As he puts his key into the latch, the door opens. There
stands a handsome girl; her face is flushed; her eyes are bright; her lips
are held up for him to kiss; she shows no trace of a day that began hours
before his and has been a succession of exasperations and humiliations
against which her sensitive nature, trained in the home of her father, a
distinguished up-the-state Judge, gives her no protection, "Victory," she
whispers, her arms about his neck and her head upon his coat collar.
"Victory! We are seventy-two cents ahead on the week, and everything paid