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phorescent gleam of sulphur matches dipped in water."

He paused a moment, looked into the eyes of the girl below which responded with an awe-filled soul.

dollars which fell noisily from one hand to the other.

"That's just it," replied Mary Louise, a bit more comforted. "If his folks would give us enough to start us out right it would be different-" can

"In other words, neither you nor he be sure that you won't be able to get along perfectly well without each other in the course of a few months, and you ought to try it out. The chances are that within six months you'll both wonder what you saw in each other to make you so nutty about it."

Jimmie, as he listened, doubled back his fists. "The pig!" he soliloquized, and took a step forward, only to retreat as he heard Mary Louise protest:

"No; I'm perfectly sure now that he is the only one that shall ever come into my life. I love him, oh, so much! I can hardly get along without him, and I think you are perfectly horrid!" She threw back her head tossing her curls from her face indignantly.

Jeremiah regarded her musingly, took a few puffs on his pipe, took it out when ample time had passed to soothe her

wrath and resumed:

"Again, the theory of living on a little bit of money is fine, but it's not the same in practice. So if you both have happened to fall so much in love with each other that you'll just pass out unless you cinch things, you should be enough in love not to handicap each other at the start. He'd have a fierce time making a living for two at the first jump off, these days. You'd never get an inch ahead of the game on finances. His nose would be on the grindstone from the start. You think it would be fine to sacrifice everything for him and cook and wash, etc., on nothing a week and you'd continue to think so for a week. You haven't had to do things yourself, nor economize, nor skimp in your life, and you'd have a large and luscious time doing it now. Making things go on less than six thousand sure money for two people, these days, is no parlor trick to be performed with one hand."

May Louise opened her mouth in two gasps and the listening Jimmie turned his pockets inside out and counted the silver

Jeremiah straightened up, assumed a stern reproach which was not without sincerity. "You ought to be carried out by the undertow, at two in the morning, for even considering for a moment living on contributions from either his family or yours. In the first place, you'd give the other members of both families a nice little black-jack with which to bean you both, whenever they saw fit to do so, and you couldn't call your souls your own. In the second place, if either of you would start out, dependent on such contributions, even though it might be an actual settlement on you both, then that proves one thing positively you are both only twenty, and instead of getting married, you should start in cutting out paper dolls together. Jimmie ought to be back in school. Let him go and then you'll know whether the thing's built of solid radium or just matches."

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Jeremiah rose reluctantly. "I've got to go to town on business right away." He took hold of her hand to shake it. It was ringless. He arched his eye-brows in surprise. "No ring yet?"

"No, he had to get the money himself. His father wouldn't let him have it, so we had to wait a bit—”

"What size do you wear, about?" He held her hand calculatingly for a few moments. "Well, it's a pretty hand, anyway, even without the ring."

Jimmie welcomed more than anything. else Jeremiah's disappearance. Mary Louise still sat in the same position watching the adviser's figure fade into a misty shadow.

"I've been waiting for you for two hours," Jimmie approached her.

Mary Louise turned upon him in surprise. "Why didn't you call me?"

"You told me once never to bother you when you were talking with him—" "Well, didn't I tell you, too, what (Continued on Page 73)

SUMMER CRUISING

By Howard Speddy.

Summer cruiting on the Bay,

Trade winds blowing, fresh and strong, Pleasant sailing on a day

As wet with spray, you breeze along
On windward tack, and off to lee
A tanker, heading out to sea.

Channel crossing's mighty wet,

Cockpit rail just running clear, Sticks her nose right in you bet,

Taut as steel the running gear. Fog bank in the Golden Gate,

Sunshine in the Raccoon Strait.

Tamalpais, sentinel,

Of ships that come and go, Hails a tramp from Cristobal

Godspeeds one to Tokyo.

Speaks a schooner southward bound,
Steamer off for Puget Sound.

Guardian of the Golden Gate,
Vain to seek by artifice,

Knowledge of elusive fate

From yon ancient Lachesis. Saw the moulding of the shore

And will see forevermore.

Tell us of the argosies,

Where the ancient treasures rest,

Mysteries of the seven seas,

Secrets, locked up in your breast.

Who the sleeping lady is

Beauteous as Semiramis.

Swinging at our anchor chains
In the cove at Paradise,

Neophytes of many names,

At your feet, oh, Tamalpais.

Dreaming of the Southern Cross,

And the ships that have been lost.

Sail and dream of Ocean lore,

Palm trees rustling on the shore

Of Papeete the Marquesas,

Prince of Wales, and Hecate,

Nagasaki-Cristobal,

Ladrone Islands-Cape San Paul.

Sail and dream throughout the day,
Summer cruising on the Bay.

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Why Rents Are High

STIMATES placing the shortage of

E houses in America at more than

1,250,000 will be placed before the National Council of the Chamber of Commerce of the United State at a meeting to be held in Washington January 27 and 28 which will discuss measures to relieve the situation.

Mr.

The housing shortage, according to John Ihlder, manager of the National Chamber's civic development department, has reached a point where four million persons are inadequately housed. Ihlder is helping in the preparation of a program for the conference, which will bring representatives of the 1400 industrial and commercial organizations making up the National Chamber's membership. He has made a close study of the housing problem.

"For a number of years prior to the World War," said Mr. Ihlder "it is conservatively estimated that there were erected in the United States between 350,000 and 400,000 family dwellings in a year. This includes homes and apartments. During the war construction of houses was practically at a standstill with the exception of what building was done by the Government. As a result of this we came out of the war far behind our regular building program. The situation has not improved a great deal since the signing of the armistice except for a brief spurt early in 1919, because those who contemplated building homes put it off until prices became stabilized.

"In 1919 it is estimated that there were built only about 70,000 houses in the United States, while the number erected during 1920 will probably turn out to have been even smaller than that figure.

"While it is true there are many houses for sale, these are nearly all now occupied by tenants. The number of houses for rent in most communities is practically nil and the majority of these houses are not suitable for the needs of the average wage earner. A man with an income of $5,000 a year or more doesn't have as much trouble getting desirable quarters as the wage earner who cannot afford to pay high rents. The wage earner and those earning small salaries are the ones who are hit hardest by the housing shortage. It is for these folks that decent homes must be built.

"Meanwhile they, as well as many with larger incomes, are doubling up or taking in lodgers. Increased rents, too, have caused many families to share their quarters with outsiders, so we have the anomaly of a block or an apartment house containing a larger number of people than it ever did in the past, yet with an occasional house or apartment vacant because those needing better quarters can't afford to pay any higher rents. This overcrowding of rooms is viewed with anxiety by the public health officials who realize how infectious diseases spread under such conditions.

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"You'd better run around with her a little bit," he advised. "The four of us would have a good time together and she's certainly easy to look at.' sus

"What's the idea?" I asked piciously. "XLZ is going down and you've ridden the stock from start to finish."

"XLZ means nothing in my young life," he replied gayly. "Will you eat on me or will you not? I may never offer again."

I knew that was the truth and it fixed my decision.

"I'll be glad to," I said. "When and where?"

"At the club at 6:30," he informed me. "I have a bill at the club."

Jimmie certainly was the radiant young thing when the waiter showed us to our table, and he ordered a dinner that will stun him when he sees it on next month's account. When we got down to the cigarettes I leaned across to him.

"Well-” I said. "Tell me your troubles. I'm ready."

"Troubles," he echoed. "Fool, you jest. I'll tell you my joys. I'm going to be married."

I almost fell out of my chair.
"Who's the unfortunate?" I gasped.
"Ethel Dade."

"Ethel Dade-," I murmured. Shades of the forgotten past!

I congratulated Jimmie dazedly and told him Ethel should be congratulated still more, and I meant that sincerely, because Jimmie's kind will make a girl happy, if any man on earth can. But I couldn't get over the shock-Jimmie Magill and Ethel Dade-!

Ethel was my first really serious "case." Oh, it had been years and years ago! I had come from college, a very bored and sophisticated sophomore, and Tom Laurie had told me that Marguerite Dade's "kid sister," a fragile, blue-eyed,

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I made a test call one night and something detained me so that I didn't get to the Dade home until 9 o'clock. I expected an icily tinkling "I'm charmed to meet you, Mr. Ainsworth," such as my sophomoric friends would have given me, but I got my first surprise.

"Hello, Dicky," a warmly, tremulous voice spoke up from a porch swing. "I'm Ethel Dade and I'm not going to be stiff and say 'Mr. Ainsworth.' Tom and Marguerite said you weren't coming and they've gone to a 'movie,' but I knew they were wrong."

"Of course, they were wrong, Ethel," I assured her. "I'm sorry I was late, and I'll never, never, never be late again because I'm going to come here lots more, if you'll let me. And we're not going to their old 'movie' because we're going to stay here and be all nicely acquainted by the time they get back-aren't we?"

"We are," she assented.
We did and we were.

Ethel and I were as madly in love as the average college undergraduate and high school girl get. We remained that way for two or three years, too, ang didn't go with anyone else, and finally formed a mad plan to elope; until Mrs. Dade one night made the casual remark that either of her daughters could marry whom she pleased when she pleased, provided the man was the right kind-because, the chances were, if the mother opposed, the girl would run away and do it anyway. When we found it was so easy for us to get married, somehow or other we looked at it more coolly.

We took our time after that and studied our case pretty carefully. I developed a hundred faults and Ethel's temper couldn't stand the test, and we

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