years of courtship at a big Middle West university. Looking back, it
seems to me that rich, tumultuous college life of ours was wholly
pagan. All about us was the free-handed atmosphere of "easy money,"
and in our "crowd" a tacit implication that a good time was one of
the primary necessities of life. Such were our ideas when we married
on a salary of one hundred dollars a month. We took letters of
introduction to some of the "smart" people in a suburb near Chicago,
and they proved so delightfully cordial that we settled down among
them without stopping to consider the discrepancies between their
ways and our income. We were put up at a small country club--a
simple affair enough, comparatively speaking--that demanded six
weeks' salary in initial dues and much more in actual subsequent
expense. "Everybody" went out for Saturday golf and stayed for
dinner and dancing.

By fall there was in working operation a dinner club of the "younger
married set," as our local column in the city papers called us; an
afternoon bridge club; and a small theater club that went into town
every fortnight for dinner and a show. Costly little amusements, but
hardly more than were due charming young people of our opportunities
and tastes. I think that was our attitude, although we did not admit
it. In September we rented a "smart" little apartment. We had
planned to furnish it by means of several generous checks which were
family contributions to our array of wedding gifts. What we did was
to buy the furniture on the instalment plan, agreeing to pay twenty
dollars a month till the bill was settled, and we put the furniture
money into running expenses.

It was the beginning of a custom. They gave most generously, that
older generation. Visiting us, Max's mother would slip a bill into