as soon forgotten in their fears for their own
immediate future.

They remained at the table in silence for some time: then,

'How much rent do we owe now?' asked Easton.

'Four weeks, and I promised the collector the last time he called that
we'd pay two weeks next Monday. He was quite nasty about it.'

'Well, I suppose you'll have to pay it, that's all,' said Easton.

'How much money will you have tomorrow?' asked Ruth.

He began to reckon up his time: he started on Monday and today was
Friday: five days, from seven to five, less half an hour for breakfast
and an hour for dinner, eight and a half hours a day--forty-two hours
and a half. At sevenpence an hour that came to one pound four and
ninepence halfpenny.

'You know I only started on Monday,' he said, 'so there's no back day
to come. Tomorrow goes into next week.'

'Yes, I know,' replied Ruth.

'If we pay the two week's rent that'll leave us twelve shillings to
live on.'

'But we won't be able to keep all of that,' said Ruth, 'because there's
other things to pay.'

'What other things?'

'We owe the baker eight shillings for the bread he let us have while
you were not working, and there's about twelve shillings owing for
groceries. We'll have to pay them something on account. Then we want
some more coal; there's only about a shovelful left, and--'

'Wait a minnit,' said Easton. 'The best way is to write out a list of
everything we owe; then we shall know exactly where we are. You get me
a piece of paper and tell me what to write. Then we'll see what it all
comes to.'

'Do you mean everything we owe, or everything we must pay tomorrow.'

'I think we'd better make a list of all we owe first.'

While they were talking the baby was sleeping restlessly, occasionally
uttering plaintive little cries. The mother now went and knelt at the
side of the cradle, which she gently rocked with one hand, patting the
infant with the other.

'Except the furniture people, the biggest thing we owe is the rent,'
she said when Easton was ready to begin.

'It seems to me,' said he, as, after having cleared a space on the
table and arranged the paper, he began to sharpen his pencil with a
table-knife, 'that you don't manage things as well as you might. If
you was to make a list of just the things you MUST have before you went
out of a Saturday, you'd find the money would go much farther. Instead
of doing that you just take the money in your hand without kn