which Mrs. Hoover has
been breaking her back standing over the stove all the afternoon seeing
that it don't stick to the bottom of the kettle, y'understand, and Mr.
Hoover takes only a couple slices of it on account of the war,
y'understand, what is going to happen then?

"'So,' Mrs. Hoover says, 'you had one of them sixty-cent table-d'hote
lunches to-day again, and now of course you 'ain't got no appetite. How
many times did I tell you you shouldn't eat that poison?'

"'So sure as I am sitting here, mommer,' Hoover says, 'all I had for my
lunch was a Swiss-cheese rye-bread sandwich and a cup coffee.'

"'Then what's the matter you ain't eating?' Mrs. Hoover says. 'Ain't it
cooked right?'

"'Certainly it's cooked right,' Hoover says. 'But two pieces is a plenty
on account of the war.'

"'On account of the war! I could work my fingers to the bone fixing good
food for that man, and he wouldn't eat it on account of the war, _sagt
er_,' says Mrs. Hoover.

"'But, listen, mommer--' Hoover tries to tell her.

"'Never mind, any excuse is better than none,' Mrs. Hoover says. 'Turns
up his nose at my cooking yet! _Gestoffte Miltz_ ain't good _enough_ for
him. I suppose you would like me to give you every day roast duck on
twenty dollars a week housekeeping money. Did you ever hear the like?
Couldn't eat _gestoffte Miltz_ no more, so tony he gets all of a
sudden!'

"'_Aber_ mommer, listen to me for a moment,' Hoover says, but it ain't a
bit of use because Mrs. Hoover goes into the bedroom and locks the door
on him, and by the time he has got her to be on speaking terms again he
has violated the don't-eat-no-sugar DON'T to the extent of four dollars
and fifty cents for a five-pound box of mixed chocolates and bum-bums,
understand me. Also just to show that she forgives him they take in a
show mit afterward a supper in which Mr. Hoover violates not only all
the other DON'TS in the food-conservation circulars, but also makes
himself liable to go to jail for giving a couple of dollars to a German
head waiter under the Trading with the Enemy law."

"At that, the way some of our best hotels conservates food nowadays is
setting a good example to the women of the country," Morris declared.

"What do you mean--nowadays?" Abe retorted. "They always conservated
food, the only difference being, Mawruss, that in former times, when
them crooks used to get ten portions of chicken _a la_ King out of a
two-pound cold-storage chicken and