nd year I
didn't have anything left over.

That is true of the next six years. My salary was advanced steadily to
twenty dollars and at that time it took just twenty dollars a week
for me to live. I wasn't extravagant and I wasn't dissipated but every
raise found a new demand. It seemed to work automatically. You might
almost say that our salaries were not raised at all but that we were
promoted from a ten dollar plane of life to a fifteen dollar plane and
then to a twenty. And we all went together--that is the men who
started together. Each advance meant unconsciously the wearing of
better clothes, rooming at better houses, eating at better
restaurants, smoking better tobacco, and more frequent amusements.
This left us better satisfied of course but after all it left us just
where we began. Life didn't mean much to any of us at this time and if
we were inclined to look ahead why there were the big salaried jobs
before us to dream about. But even if a man had been forehanded and of
a saving nature, he couldn't have done much without sacrificing the
only friends most of us had--his office associates. For instance--to
save five dollars a week at this time I would have had to drop back
into the fifteen dollars a week crowd and I'd have been as much out of
place there as a boy dropped into a lower grade at school. I remember
that when I was finally advanced another five dollars I half-heartedly
resolved to put that amount in the bank weekly. But at this point the
crowd all joined a small country club and I had either to follow or
drop out of their lives. Of course in looking back I can see where I
might have done differently but I wasn't looking back then--nor very
far ahead either. If it would have prevented my joining the country
club I'm glad I didn't.

It was out there that I met the girl who became my wife. My best
reason for remaining anonymous is the opportunity it will give me to
tell about Ruth. I want to feel free to rave about her if I wish. She
objected in the magazine article and she objects even more strongly
now but, as before, I must have an uncramped hand in this. The chances
are that I shall talk more about her than I did the first time. The
whole scheme of my life, beginning, middle and end, swings around her.
Without her inspiration I don't like to think what the end of me might
have been. And it's just as true to-day as it was in the stress of the
fight.

I was twenty-six when I met Ruth and she was