Anxiously David saw his scanty resources dwindling fast. One by one his old commissions were paid and disappeared down the hopper of household expenses. He took to thinking of what would happen when the commissions were all paid, and to haunting Fisher's office. Fisher was his contractor client and owed him five hundred dollars. But Fisher always put him off. In the meantime the dairy lunch became a habit. He smoked only a pipe now. The books he loved and needed, little things he used to think were necessaries, were foregone. He thought wistfully of the indulgences he might have gone without in the past. Fisher continued to put him off. Then Worry began to shadow David by day, to share his pillow at night. If Fisher, like so many others, should fail--! But with an effort he concealed the unbidden guest from Shirley. With her he was always cheery, ready with quip and laugh, teasing her over her devotion to that red-faced bit of humanity, hight Davy Junior. And in truth, the sight of her, still weak and fragile but happy in the possession of her baby, would give him a fresh courage. Things _couldn't_ happen to hurt her, he assured himself. For her, for them; he would weather the storm--somehow. "Why," thus he would snub intrusive Worry, "we've got Fisher, anyhow. When he pays, we'll simply _make_ it last until business picks up." . . . . The doctor's bill and word that Fisher had gone into bankruptcy reached him by the same mail. Dazed and trembling, he got out his bank-book and tried to strike a balance; the figures danced crazily before him. But too well he knew that slender sum! He could see barely a month ahead. He walked home that evening, to get a new grip on his courage. He found Shirley almost breathless with excitement. She waved a letter before him. "You can have two guesses to what's in it." But David was unequal even to one guess just then. "It's from Aunt Clara. She wants me to take the baby out there for two or three weeks. You don't mind, do you, David?" "Do you want to go so much?" "I'm just crazy to have them see Davy Junior. And I haven't seen Maizie and auntie and the rest of them for so long. And I think the change will do me good. I get tired so easily, you know." This last was a convincing argument and quite true. "I know. But I'm afraid, dear, we can't afford it." "Is business so bad?" "It's pretty slow---and getting no better." "Hasn't that Fisher man paid up yet?" He hesitated. But he could not find the heart--perhaps it was courage he lacked--to break his evil tidings to her. "Not yet." "I'd like to shake him. But he must pay soon. And anyhow," she reverted to the original topic, "it wouldn't cost so much. There'd be only railroad fare and in two weeks--or maybe three--we'd save that in house expenses. We could let the maid go, you know." He caught at that straw. "And maybe, when you come back, you'll be strong enough to get along without her--for a while?"