“Gosh!” Joel answered in his soft, eager tone. “I don’t care, Pups. Whatever you say goes with me! You know, it’s all the same to me, anyway. I can eat anything you order. Only,” he added laughing, “I’d prefer it if there’s no meat. I’d like it much better if you ordered vegetables.”
Mr. Pierce knocked the pince-nez from his nose, and turning to Eugene with an air of agreeable confidence, said:
“What’s wrong with a boy who takes no more interest in his food than that? Can you make it out? It strikes me as the most astonishing thing,” he went on in a gruff, distinguished way, “to see a healthy young man who has no interest in his belly. Really Joel,” he went on, turning to his son and regarding him with a kind of quizzical but good-humoured sarcasm, “I’d feel so much better about you if you only liked food more. It’s really tragic to see a boy of your age deliberately throwing away one of the greatest pleasures in life. Don’t you think so?” he demanded, turning to the other boy again with his air of friendly confidence. “Or have you turned vegetarian, too?”
“Gosh, no!” Joel said, laughing his hushed eager, immensely agreeable laugh. “He’ll agree with every word you say, Pups. He likes food even more than you do.”
“Then I’m glad to hear it!” said Mr. Pierce approvingly. “I had begun to fear that this younger generation had gone utterly to hell. But if the symptoms are only local—” he frowned humorously at his son for a moment—“perhaps it’s not as bad as I thought.”
“You and Pups should get along together beautifully,” said Joel to Eugene. “He loves to eat—he’s a wonderful cook—you should come up to Rhinekill sometime and let him cook one of his meals for you.”
The ordering of the meal proceeded in this agreeable fashion. Mr. Pierce ordered liberally: small pink-fleshed clams, cold, pungent and exciting in their perfect shells, a thick pea soup with little squares of toast-crust floating in it, young chicken, plump and tender, grilled so succulently that it seemed to melt away the moment that one put it in his mouth, asparagus and potatoes, and a salad of crisp lettuce, beautifully mixed, “fatigued,” in a big salad bowl, iced coffee, and a dessert of ripe Camembert and salted crackers. Mr. Pierce and Eugene ate heartily and with obvious relish, but Joel, in spite of all their protests and his father’s bantering ridicule, which he took with the beautiful laughing good-nature which was one of the finest traits of his character, stuck to his
