" I said to my indignant stomach as we left the
table--"Never mind! I shall make it all up to you for this
mistreatment at breakfast to-morrow morning. We shall rise early--you
and I--and with loud gurgling cries we shall leap headlong into one of
those regular breakfasts in which the people of this city and nation
specialise so delightfully. Food regulators may work their ruthless
will upon the dinner trimmings, but none would dare to put so much as
the weight of one impious finger upon an Englishman's breakfast table
to curtail its plenitude. Why, next to Magna Charta, an Englishman's
breakfast is his most sacred right."

This in confidence was what I whispered to my gastric juices. You see,
being still in ignorance of the full scope of the ration scheme in
its application to the metropolitan district, and my disheartening
experience at the meal just concluded to the contrary notwithstanding,
I had my thoughts set upon rashers of crisp Wiltshire bacon, and broad
segments of grilled York ham, and fried soles, and lovely plump
sausages bursting from their jackets, and devilled kidneys paired off
on a slice of toast, like Noah and his wife crossing the gangplank
into the Ark.

Need I prolong the pain of my disclosures by longer withholding the
distressing truth that breakfast next morning was a failure too? To
begin with, I couldn't get any of those lovely crisp crescent rolls
that accord so rhythmically with orange marmalade and strawberry jam.
I couldn't get hot buttered toast either, but only some thin hard
slabs of war bread, which seemingly had been dry-cured in a kiln. I
could have but a very limited amount of sugar--a mere pinch, in fact;
and if I used it to tone up my coffee there would be none left for
oatmeal porridge. Moreover, this dab of sugar was to be my full day's
allowance, it seemed. There was no cream for the porridge either, but,
instead, a small measure of skimmed milk so pale in colour that it had
the appearance of having been diluted with moonbeams.

Furthermore, I was informed that prior to nine-thirty I could have no
meat of any sort, the only exceptions to this cruel rule being
kippered herrings and bloaters; and in strict confidence the waiter
warned me that, for some mysterious reason, neither the kippers nor
the bloaters seemed to be up to their oldtime mark of excellence just
now. From the same source I gathered that it would be highly
inadvisable to order fried eggs, because of the lack