I guess the way I said it.’Well, you got enough?’she said.’Oh-h!’I said,”—again the faint protesting gasp, “’if I ate another mouthful, I’d pop open! Oh-h!”—Well, it made her laugh, you know, the way I said it—’I'd pop open!’I said,’I couldn’t eat another mouthful!’—'Well, just so long as you got enough!’she says.’We like to see everyone get enough. We want you to be satisfied,’she said.’Oh-h!’I said, “ the faint protesting gasp again,”’not another mouthful, my dear! I couldn’t!—But, oh-h! Mrs. Martin, if you could have seen that apple-pie! It was dee-licious! I was sorry to see it go to waste!"
“Well,” said Mrs. Martin, rather tartly, obviously a little envious of the other’s rich adventure—“we had a good meal here at the hotel, too. We had some celery and olives to start off with and then we had some good pea soup and after that we had roast beef and mashed potatoes—wasn’t the roast beef we had tonight delicious, Doctor Withers?” she demanded of this arbiter of taste.
“Well,” he said, smacking his dry lips together drolly, “the only complaint I had to make was that they didn’t bring me the whole cow. I had to ask George for a second helping…. Yes, sir, if I never fare any worse than that I’ll have no kick—it was a very good piece of beef—well-cooked, tender, very tasty,” he said with a dry, scientific precision, and again he smacked his leathery lips together with an air of relish.
“—Well, I thought so, too,” said Mrs. Martin, nodding her head with satisfaction at this sign of his agreement “—I thought it was delicious—and then,” she went on reflectively, “we had a nice lettuce and tomato salad, some biscuit tortoni and, of course,” she concluded elegantly, “the demy-tassy.”
“Well, I didn’t have any of the demy-tassy,” said Doctor Withers, the droll wit. “None of your demy-tassy for me! No, sir! I had coffee—two big cups of it, too,” he went on with satisfaction. “If I’m going to poison myself I’m going to do a good job of it—none of your little demy-tassys for me!”
And the old women cackled aridly their dry appreciation of his wit.
“—Good evening, Mrs. Buckles,” Doctor Withers continued, getting up and bowing gallantly to a heavily built, arthritic-looking old woman who now approached the group with a stiff and gouty movement. “We missed you tonight. Did you eat in the restaurant?”
“No,” she panted in a wheezing tone, as, with a painful grunt, she lowered her heavily corseted bulk into the chair he offered her. “I didn’t go down—I didn’t have much appetite and I didn’t want to risk it. I had
