"There aren't going to be any buts," she answered decidedly.
"But six dollars a week—"
"Is six dollars a week," she broke in. "We must live on five-fifty, that's all."
"With steak thirty cents a pound?"
"We won't have steak. That's the point. Our neighbors around here don't look starved, and they have larger families than ours. And they don't even buy intelligently."
"How do you know that?"
"I've been watching them at the little stores in the square. They pay there as much for half-decayed stuff as they'd have to pay for fresh odds and ends at the big market."
She rested her pad upon her knee.
"Now in the first place, Billy, we're going to live much more simply."
"We've never been extravagant," I said.