The Press., 1920-05-20
"HE TRAVELS
 FASTEST" By ELIZABETH Y. MILLER
Copyright J

(Copyright.)
 Arthur Brooks was an ambitious young man. When he married Theo- dora he took her to live in one of the Jersey suburbs. The rent was low and the neighborhood not too fastidi- ous. For be it understood that Ar thurs ambition ran not to luxuries, but to the accumulation of wealth.
 He was the type of man-the thrifty, saving type-who keeps a couple of dime banks in constant use, one on his desk at the office wherein he dropped the ten-cent pieces which rightfully belonged to the waiter who served him at lunch, the other on his chffOnier at home On the chiffOnier there was, too, large papier mache orange for the devOuring of stray pennies.
 Theodora, who was not "allow- anced" in the orthodox, theoretical way, conceived the idea that the dimes and pennies which were dropped into the home banks rightfully belonged to her. And having discovered that a slim-bladed penknife was a safe ally, she filched from them sometimes so much as a whole dollar at once. Nat urally enough the home savings did not accumulate very fast.
 But they had been married whole year before Arthur Brooks detected his young wife in her offerings. The lecture which he read her was mag nificent of its kind. In a way, how ever, the force of it rolled off Theo- dora like water off a ducks back. She was not thrifty by nature; she needed money, and helping herself to it was by far an easier and surer way of getting it than begging 1t of Arthur.
 ously, should you need any extra money? Aren't you fed? Haven't you enough of everything?"
 "Plenty," said Theodora placidly, "of everything but money."s
 But what did you need money for?" he persisted.
 Theodora flushed. Then she threw back her head defantly.
 Since you must know," she burst iOi LII iS3llohliJ, oIoIC II JUL JOu III order to buy baby clothes P In this manner was Arthur Brooks made cognizant of his impending fatherhOod.
 The revelation came to him in the nature of a distinct shock. He had reckOned upon marriage, had fully counted the cost of taking a wife, but he had left baby clothes and all that pertains thereto out of his calcula- tfons.
 Indeed, 1t had been part of his in- born thriftiness which tempted him in the first place to get married. He had heard many times how wife helped a fellow to "get on.'' The wife, 1t seemed, always Scrimped and saved, baked, brewed, sewed, washed, and ironed for her board and keep. Per haps in the interim, even, she took in little dressmaking from the more extravagant of her neighbors.
 That was the wife of Arthur Brooks bachelor dreams. Somehow the dream was mixed up with a disconcerting reality. It was case of not looking before he leaped; of loving, perhaps not wisely, but too well.
 Physically, Theodora was lovely enough to tempt any man into mar riage. Possibly young Arthur lost his head, and forgot to question her ante cedents. For Theodora's upbringing had been quite different from his. In her fathers household dime banks and papier-mache oranges were things unknown. So was a bank account Her family had lived luxuriously from hand to mouth, and there was | always a huge pile of bills waiting to 1 be paid. But this irritating fact in no wise lessened the number of gowns that Theodora and her mother bought, nor forced the family to dine on corn ed beef in preference to chicken. There were theater trips in Theodora's antenuptial days, cabs, restaurant din- ners, and wildly extravagant times at Christmas.
 Theodora's welded life was quite different. They lived we'll within her husbands income-unnecessar so. 1t sometimes seemed-and to her cred 1t be 1t said, that she did her best to take kindly to the new regime h. deed. considering all that had gone before, Theodora did remarkably well. She loved her thrifty husband and, in a way, she was happy.
 Arthur too, was happy in a way. He would have been happier, perhaps, If matrimony had been less expensive, but saving was with him a constitu- tional instinct, and his regrets did not reflect measurably upon Theodora.
 There were times when his love for her swept him like tempest.
 Her clear brown eyes; her hair, satiny and smooth like the brown wing of a bird; her slender figure, moving so lithely to household tasks; her pretty white hands, which no amount of toll seemed to harden, were all- powerful lodestones to draw him to her.
 And yet 1t could not be denied. Theodora, with all her physical at- fractions. was horrible expense. There were times when Arthur Brooks took to brooding over what might have been. If, for instance, he hadn't married or had put off marrying until more "suitable" time He figured up how cheaply he might have lived. If he hadn't married! Heavens! How he could have saved! i.Nen a cheap flat. with a wife who had no sense of money value, and an impending baby-hOw it ate into ones | income, Arthur Brooks realized that he had made a foolish mistake in mar rying Sc young. Naturally, however, he did not tell this to Theodora. He | was not unkindly enough for that, and | besides, it was he who had asked her | to marry him. She had not been Over- | ly anxious at first. Arthur, though | economical. was just. And then, as by a hOrrifying mir acle. the thing happened
 The little baby, for whose ward