It is
notoriously weak, especially as to stomach. You may feed 'em prunes and
whole-wheat bread and apple sauce, and after a while they'll forget
the fat days, and remember only the lean and hungry ones. But let some
student of human nature at the proper moment introduce just one fat day,
one feast, one revel--"
"Talk English," I said sharply.
"Don't break in on my flights of fancy," he objected. "If you want the
truth, Thoburn is going to have a party--a forbidden feast. He's going
to rouse again the sleeping dogs of appetite, and send them ravening
back to the Plaza, to Sherry's and Del's and the little Italian
restaurants on Sixth Avenue. He's going to take them up on a high
mountain and show them the wines and delicatessen of the earth, and
then ask them if they're going to be bullied into eating boiled beef and
cabbage."
"Then I don't care how soon he does it," I said despondently. "I'd
rather die quickly than by inches."
"Die!" he said. "Not a bit of it. Remember, our friend Pierce is also
a student of human nature. He's thinking it out now in the cold plunge,
and I miss my guess if Thoburn's sky-rocket hasn't got a stick that'll
come back and hit him on the head."
He had been playing with one of the chewing-gum jars, and when he had
gone I shoved it back into its place. It was by the merest chance that I
glanced at it, and I saw that he had slipped a small white box inside. I
knew I was being a silly old fool, but my heart beat fast when I took
it out and looked at it.
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