that habit my bills showed a decrease of $16.47. I shall always
remember that sum, because it is certainly the biggest I have ever
seen. I began to ask the prices of things; and I made my first faint
effort at applying our game of substitution to the food problem, a
thing which to me is still one of the most fascinating factors in
housekeeping.

One afternoon in late summer, I found a delightful little bungalow
in process of building, on a side street not so _very_ far from the
proper avenue. I investigated idly, and found that the rent was
thirty dollars less than we were paying. Yet even then I hesitated.

It was Max who had the courage to decide.

"The only thing we are doing without is the address," he said, "And
that isn't a loss that looks like $360 to me."

All that fall and winter we kept doggedly at our game of
substitution. Max bought a ready-made Tuxedo, and I ripped out the
label and sewed in one from a good tailor. I carried half a dozen
dresses from the dyer's to a woman who evolved three very decent
gowns; and then I toted them home in a box with a marking calculated
to impress any chance acquaintance. We were so ashamed of our
attempts at thrift that they came hard.

Often enough we quarreled after we had been caught in some sudden
temptation that set us back a pretty penny, and we were inevitably
bored and cross when we refused some gayety for economy's sake. We
resolutely decided to read aloud the evenings the others went to the
theater club; and as resolutely we substituted a stiff game of chess