"Everyone is to have as much as he likes,
certainly. Of course he is. We are not going to be inhospitable. On the
contrary, we are prepared to share our last crust. But there must be
absolutely no waste."

There was a short pause. No one was inclined to demur to that
proposition. The Reverend Henry alone had doubts.

"It is difficult at a time like this, you know," he began mildly, "to be
quite certain that you are doing the right thing. If you stop all waste
in your household are you sure that you may not be encouraging
unemployment? If you don't waste biscuits it follows that fewer biscuits
are made and therefore----"

The Reverend Henry was adjudged to be on the wrong tack and his protest
was swept aside.

"Breakfast now," my wife began briskly, bringing into action her block
of notepaper and fountain-pen. "All that I want to know--I wouldn't
dream of stinting you--is--how much do you intend to eat?"

She looked round expectantly, the pen poised in her hand. There was
rather an awkward pause. The question seemed at first blush a little
indelicate. Sinclair tried to temporize.

"But wait a bit," he said. "Can't the servants manage to consume----"

"The servants breakfast long before you are up, Mr. Sinclair," my wife
reminded him.

"It's perfectly simple," said I, suddenly taking the floor; "I think it
an admirable idea, the essence of good citizenship. What we have got to
do is to declare our appetites overnight so that every man eats the food
he has booked and we make a clean sweep. Book me for two eggs and a
kipper."

"Sorry there are no kippers to-morrow," said my wife. "Boiled eggs,
bacon and kidneys and mushrooms."

"It would be wrong to suppose that I do not consider it a wise and
indeed public-spirited idea in every way," said the Reverend Henry after
some reflection, "but it is a little difficult, you know. It depends so
much upon how one sleeps and what one feels like, and what sort of
morning it is, and the letters that come, and the war news."

"And on the temperature of one's tub," added Sinclair. "For my part I
eat a lot at breakfast. I don't feel that I have the face to advertise
the whole catalogue in this sort of way. It's too cold-blooded. Besides,
I fluctuate like anything."

"Come on," said I. "You fellows are simply trying to shirk the thing. I
declare two eggs, no bacon and three mushrooms, assuming an average size
for mushrooms. One cup and a half of coffee. Three lumps in all."