uare--and the various
kinds of jellies--crab-apple, currant, grape and quince--quivering in an
ecstacy as though at their very goodness, and casting upon the white
cloth where the light catches them all the reflected, dancing tints of
beryl and amethyst, ruby and garnet--crown-jewels in the diadem of real
food.

People who eat dinners like this must, by the very nature of things,
cling also to the ancient North American custom of starting the day with
an amount of regular food called collectively a breakfast. This, of
course, does not mean what the dweller in the city by the seaboard calls
a breakfast, he knowing no better, poor wretch--a swallow of tea, a bite
of a cold baker's roll, a plate of gruel mayhap, or pap, and a sticky
spoonful of the national marmalade of Perfidious Albumen, as the poet
has called it, followed by a slap at the lower part of the face with a
napkin and a series of V-shaped hiccoughs ensuing all the morning. No,
indeed.

In speaking thus of breakfast, I mean a real breakfast. If it's in New
England there'll be doughnuts and pies on the table, and not those
sickly convict labor pies of the city either, with the prison pallor yet
upon them, but brown, crusty, full-chested pies. And if it's down South
there will be hot waffles and fresh New Orleans molasses; and if it's in
any section of our country, north or south, east or west, such comfits
and kickshaws as genuine country smoked sausage, put up in bags and
spiced like Araby the Blest, and fresh eggs fried in pairs--never less
than in pairs--with their lovely orbed yolks turned heavenward like
the topaz eyes of beauteous prayerful blondes; and slices of home-cured
ham with the taste of the hickory smoke and also of the original hog
delicately blended in them, and marbled with fat and lean, like the
edges of law books; and cornbeef hash, and flaky hot biscuits; and an
assortment of those same pickles and preserves already mentioned; the
whole being calculated to make a hungry man open his mouth until his
face resembles the general-delivery window at the post-office--and sail
right in.

[Illustration: "WHERE DO YOU FIND THE PERCENTAGE OF DYSPEPTICS RUNNING
HIGHEST?"]

The cry has been raised that American cooking is responsible for
American dyspepsia, and that as a race we are given to pouring pepsin
pellets down ourselves because of the food our ancestors poured down
themselves. This is a base calumny. Old John J. Calumny himself never
coin