"Say, that's tough, ain't it?" she exclaimed. "The janitor was here again for the rent. He says they'll serve us with a dispossess. I told him to chase himself, I was that mad." Annie's vocabulary was emphatic, rather than choice. Entirely without education, she made no pretense at being what she was not and therein perhaps lay her chief charm. As Howard stooped to kiss her, she said reproachfully: "You've been drinking again, Howard. You promised me you wouldn't." The young man made no reply. With an impatient gesture he passed on into the flat and flung himself down in a chair in the dining room. From the adjoining kitchen came a welcome odor of cooking. "Dinner ready?" he demanded. "I'm devilish hungry." "Yes, dear, just a minute," replied his wife from the kitchen. "There's some nice Irish stew, just what you like." The box-like hole where Howard sat awaiting his meal was the largest room in a flat which boasted of "five and bath." There was a bedroom of equally diminutive proportions and a parlor with wall paper so loud that it talked. There was scarcely enough room to swing a cat 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?"