The Watchword Is Economy

Even the Rich Are Forced to Suffer, Along With All the Others

GEORGE S. CHAPPELL

WHAT a dreadful word "Economy" is!

It makes me shiver to write it. But it has certainly been forced upon us, of late. Do what we may we can't escape it. At every corner, on every desk, table, and wallspace we see cards, posters and warnings, with their grim and grisly slogans. The morning mail is a nightmare of adjurations.

Of course, we all submit; it's the thing to do. But, in spite of the nourishment derived from the' mucilage on the backs of war-savings stamps, prices keep on going up. Thus we go on, from day to day, getting more patriotic, and peevish, every minute.

The real significance and inner meaning of all this was first borne in upon me one day, about mid-winter, when I chanced to look up from my desk and glanced at Hubert, my officeboy. I had been very busy for nearly an hour decorating the edge of my large desk blotter with an arabesque border (in pencil—picked out with dots of ink). The effect was really quite stunning. When I started my morning's work, Hubert had been busily occupied with a Sunday supplement which I thought certainly would have lasted him until noon.

But no! He had cast it aside, and, as I glanced toward him his gaze met mine with a sadness that conveyed something of the misery of a stricken fawn.

I spoke to him very gently. "Hubert," I said, "there is no longer any business in this office. You are a luxury; you must be dispensed with. You are not, in any sense of the word, an essential."

YOU see, my business—red-flannel underwear—is distinctly not an essential.

It will never win the war.

I saw that very clearly. It had already shown an alarming shrinkage and I knew that my cue was further retrenchment Every day, as the weather grew milder, the handwriting on the wall became plainer, and I finally sub-let my office, shut up shop, and moved, bag and baggage, to the club.

This, I may say, was a master-stroke of economy. The stationery alone was a big item, besides which I had free light and heat, elevator and restaurant service, bar, turkish bath and swimming pool—in fact, all the comforts that home is so conspicuously without.

I don't know why I never thought of it before. Of course, I had to let my stenographer go, but I found an excellent public typist nearby, a stunning brunette, who did very well,-—a little weak on spelling and the technical side of my business, perhaps, but possessed of really remarkably good table-manners.

The little alcove in the club library which I made my particular domain was a desert of quiet solitude. I was surrounded by old classbooks, congressional-records, and a vintage edition of the Britannica which has proved invaluable to me as a filing-cabinet. The alphabetical index on the volumes, ABE to BAB, Baba to Dada, etc., makes it possible to turn, in the twinkling of an eye, to any one of my liquid and outstanding accounts. I wonder if they will ever be discovered there by some remote, dreary, dusty-brained member—say a hundred years hence?

BUT I must not dwell on my own sacrifices and expedients to meet this world-wide wave of economy. After all, they are trivial compared to what society at large is suffering. And, when I say society I mean Society with a capital S,—the society which is used to having things and not giving them up, the reading from-left-to-right sort of people, as well' as the among-those-present lot. -

They are the ones to be pitied. They are the ones to whom my heart goes out. It is they who lie awake now, tossing on their beds of eider-down and anxiety, wrestling with the knowledge that the McAdoo will get them if they don't watch out!

Only the other day I met the most pitiful case—poor little Willie Yanderpoel. He was in khaki, home on furlough, and a more wretched wretch I have never seen. I offered him what cold comfort I could—it was only a Dubonnet frappe—but it seemed to help, and, in broken tones, he told me his story.

It seems that he had been very unhappy at home—I had heard rumors of it before—and for two years the poor soul had been skimping and scraping and putting aside and saving up every penny he could,—to get his divorce. Then along came the war, and its grim demands, and Willie, being intensely patriotic, after a most harrowing struggle with himself, dumped all his hoard into—what do you think? Liberty Bonds!

Of course, he was tied, hand-and-foot. Then the market went off a few points and, in despair, Willie got a commission in the Reserve Corps, and fled to Yaphank.

"And now," he concluded brokenly,—"what do you think has happened? My wife is suing me for divorce—on perfectly good grounds, too —bn the grounds of desertion."

I give you my word I was so affected by his story that it was all I could do to ring the bell.

JUST one more instance of what Society has to suffer. As I was leaving the house of a very dear friend, last Tuesday evening, she said, "O, George,—will you mail this letter as you pass the post-box," which I agreed to do —and didn't.

The letter came to light, several days later, as I was clearing out my pockets. Through negligence it had been left unsealed and, mistaking it for one of my own, I had re-read it for the second time before I realized it was the note from my hostess to her aviator son in Texas.

By that time the words had burned themselves indelibly into my brain. She had been so gay, so happy, so full of fun the evening we spent together—that I should have fancied her life one long ray, of sunshine. Now, here, before me . . . but let the letter speak.

"My dear son,"—she wrote—"I am sending by parcel-post, today, the cigarettes you asked for; also a comfort-kit prepared by Marian's 'DoYour-Knit' committee. The angorawool trench-trousers are quite the newest idea here. General Tubbs, who dined with us last night, said that they were the best things of the sort he had ever seen; that no soldier could possibly retreat without them. I also enclose the check for $100 as requested. Your father paid your tailor; the poor man was overcome, burst into tears and said he never had known what patriotism meant before. Our watchword now is Economy. We've let one of the chauffeurs go—I'm not sure which one; I think it was the colored man your father used for night work. I have ordered the number of cylinders reduced, on my new car, from twelve to eight. I think everyone should reduce, don't you?

"We shan't open Cragsmoor this spring, but will go direct from Palm Beach to Newport. It will be cold there, but we are having the house painted a warm tent-canvas brown, and, with the open fires, it will be quite like camping out. I suppose you will be getting your summer vacation from the army in June. You must come straight to us—for I want to have a picture taken—just you and me—you in your uniform and I in my white charmeuse. Everyone's doing it now and I have felt very badly at not having thought of it before you left. Ah, well! such is life, in these troublous times. But, I will be brave and look forward to June, to your army vacation, and to happier days.

"Ever your devoted Mother."

I didn't send the letter. I knew it would make the boy unhappy. I simply forwarded the check and filed the document in the Britannica. I know it is safe there.