SUCH are the thoughts of Ed Roman, an elderly bank clerk from Shooter, Saskatchewan, as he wanders the deck of a cruise ship bound for Europe. He has just lost the money that he and his wife, referred to only as ‘Ma,’ have been saving to pay for a ‘wedding trip’ that, as Roman nears retirement, the couple can finally afford. Roman's shame over ruining the trip, combined with his fear of the gossip at home that his folly will provoke, have him contemplating suicide—an action that, the narrator bleakly informs us, he ‘lack[s] the courage’ to take (70). The Romans—their long years of scrimping and saving, their fantasies of how the trip would be, and the ease with which disaster overtakes them—raise questions about the significance of a journey abroad. The short story appeared in the 15 June 1925 issue of Maclean’s, and its latter pages were positioned within the Travel Section, so that it was framed by advertisements for cruises and hotels that romanticised travel as a ‘pilgrimage’ (White Star Line), a chance to ‘cool off’ (Canadian Pacific), or ‘trade dull routine […] for zestful enjoyment’ (Canadian National). The story thus reveals many cracks in the fantasy of fulfilment that travel companies were keen to generate, offering us a means of exploring the key questions of this chapter: what kinds of consumption, both material and cultural, were fundamental to travel, and what were the perceived benefits of spending money on such things?