"I'm tired, all right," he nodded.
"You look worried, too."
The big fellow reflected a moment and then said slowly: "Well, I admit I'll feel better when I see Independent Copper about twenty points higher."
Mrs. Baxter eyed him keenly. "Nothing has happened? Nothing is wrong?" she asked with growing alarm.
For a few moments Hiram sat silent, then closing his lips with decision, he answered kindly: "Eleanor, I guess ye'll have to know exactly how things are. Since we've been married, and that's a good many years, I've done my best to make ye happy. I've tried to give ye everything ye wanted. I never thought the time would come, dearie, when I'd have to ask ye to economize, but——"
He hesitated while she listened with widening, startled eyes.
"Hiram!" she gasped.
He bowed with a slow impressiveness that struck terror into her worldly soul. "I'm awful sorry, but the time has come."
"Economize!" repeated Eleanor in a daze. "It isn't possible."
Again Hiram nodded. "Yes, it is. I'm pretty well tied up with the obligations I've undertaken, and—dearie, we've got to economize."