nibble a little bit sometimes; that's all.'

"'I thought the confect--'

"'For goodness' sake, change the subject,' says Mame.

"As I said before, that experience puts me wise that the feminine
arrangement ever struggles after deceptions and illusions. Take
England--beef made her; wieners elevated Germany; Uncle Sam owes
his greatness to fried chicken and pie, but the young ladies of the
Shetalkyou schools, they'll never believe it. Shakespeare, they allow,
and Rubinstein, and the Rough Riders is what did the trick.

"'Twas a situation calculated to disturb. I couldn't bear to give up
Mame; and yet it pained me to think of abandoning the practice of
eating. I had acquired the habit too early. For twenty-seven years I
had been blindly rushing upon my fate, yielding to the insidious lures
of that deadly monster, food. It was too late. I was a ruminant biped
for keeps. It was lobster salad to a doughnut that my life was going
to be blighted by it.

"I continued to board at the Dugan tent, hoping that Mame would
relent. I had sufficient faith in true love to believe that since it
has often outlived the absence of a square meal it might, in time,
overcome the presence of one. I went on ministering to my fatal vice,
although I felt that each time I shoved a potato into my mouth in
Mame's presence I might be burying my fondest hopes.

"I think Collier must have spoken to Mame and got the same answer, for
one day he orders a cup of coffee and a cracker, and sits nibbling
the corner of it like a girl in the parlour, that's filled up in the
kitchen, previous, on cold roast and fried cabbage. I caught on and
did the same, and maybe we thought we'd made a hit! The next day we
tried it again, and out comes old man Dugan fetching in his hands the
fairy viands.

"'Kinder off yer feed, ain't ye, gents?' he asks, fatherly and some
sardonic. 'Thought I'd spell Mame a bit, seein' the work was light,
and my rheumatiz can stand the strain.'

"So back me and Collier had to drop to the heavy grub again. I noticed
about that time that I was seized by a most uncommon and devastating
appetite. I ate until Mame must have hated to see me darken the door.
Afterward I found out that I had been made the victim of the first
dark and irreligious trick played on me by Ed Collier. Him and me had
been taking drinks together uptown regular, trying to drown our thirst
for food. That man had bribed about ten bartenders to always put a
big slug of