e
so--I hope so."

They dropped coffee, bought milk by the bottle, he smuggling it
to their rooms disguised as a roll of newspapers. They carried
in rolls also, and cut down their restaurant meals to supper
which they got for twenty-five cents apiece at a bakery
restaurant in Seventh Street. There is a way of resorting to
these little economies--a snobbish, self-despairing way--that
makes them sordid and makes the person indulging in them sink
lower and lower. But Burlingham could not have taken that way.
He was the adventurer born, was a hardy seasoned campaigner who
had never looked on life in the snob's way, had never felt the
impulse to apologize for his defeats or to grow haughty over his
successes. Susan was an apt pupil; and for the career that lay
before her his instructions were invaluable. He was teaching her
how to keep the craft afloat and shipshape through the worst
weather that can sweep the sea of life.

"How do you make yourself look always neat and clean?" he asked.

She confessed: "I wash out my things at night and hang them on
the inside of the shutters to dry. They're ready to wear again
in the morning."

"Getting on!" cried he, full of admiration. "They simply can't
down us, and they might as well give up trying."

"But I don't look neat," sighed she. "I can't iron."

"No--that's the devil of it," laughed he. He pulled aside his
waistcoat and she saw he was wearing a dickey. "And my cuffs are
pinned in," he said. "I have to be careful about raising and
lowering my arms."

"Can't I wash out some things for you?" she said, then hurried
on to put it more strongly. "Yes, give them to me when we get
back to the hotel."

"It does help a man to feel he's clean underneath. And we've got
nothing to waste on laundries."

"I wish I hadn't spent that fifteen cents to have my heels
straightened and new steels put in them." She had sat in a
cobbler's while this repair to the part of her person she was
most insistent upon had been effected.

He laughed. "A good investment, that," said he. "I've been
noticing how you always look nice about the feet. Keep it up.
The surest sign of a sloven and a failure, of a moral, mental,
and physical no-good is down-at-the-heel. Always keep your heels
straight, Lorna."

And never had he given her a piece of advice more to her liking.
She thought she knew now why she had always been so particular
about her boots and shoes, her slippers and her s