EDITOR'S WALLET.

Otago Witness, 6 February 1901, Page 74

EDITOR'S WALLET.

Test of a Vegetable 1 lit. ILL EFFECT ON MR BROADWAY IN AN ENCOTJNTETt WITH BURGLARS. "Jasper," said Mrs Broadway, "I've given the matter of diet a good deal of serious consideration lately, and I've come to the conclusion that we eat entirely too much meat." Mr Broadway munched his la^t bite of lamb chop with obvious relish. Then he was ready to take up the subject for discussion, and shoolc Mb head in emphatic denial of this vulgar hnpeachmeat. "Oh, I don't know," he said, "I feel well enough." Mrs Broadway sniffed at this unsympathetic reply. "Physically you may be in good trim," she said, "but I wasn't speaking about your health. It was your temper I had reference to." "Oh," eaid Mr Broadway stiffly. "What's the matter with riy temper? Doesn't it saifc you? Are there any new kinks in it?" Mrs Broadway smiled grimly. "I wouldn't put on such high-and-mighty airs," she said. "You know well enough it's so. You are not nearly so amiable as you used to be." Mr Broadway's high-and-mightiness, instead of being vanquished by this retort, was inspired to further effort. "I am aware," he said with lofty sarcasm, "that I have been treating you with extreme cruelty of late. I have locked you out of doors oftener than usual ; I have pulled your hair and blackened your eye, and called you impolite names ; but I did not know it was a diet of animal flesh that produced these pugnacious propensities." "I do wish you would be serious, Jasper," sighed Mrs Broadway. "I am in real earnest. I didn't mean you alone when I spoke of ill-temper. I, too, am becoming terribly irritable. Indeed, we are both positively bearish." "Well," returned Mr Broadway, "the only bear's meat we have eaten in years was that cutlet Westenrow sent us from the Adirondack's about six weeks ago, and there wasn't enough of that to arouse ferocious instincts. Our worst offence is an indulgence in hog meat, and if you mean to insinuate that we are " "That is just it," broke in Mrs Broadway. "We are hoggish. Why, I can't begin to enumerate the selfish deeds we have been guilty of in the last two months." "That's right," observed Mr Broadway. "I've noticed that you put up a hot fight every time for the end seat, and when you have to stand you walk all over a fellow's toes co as to " "Oh," she interrupted, "that's nothing. I have always done that. It is something far more serious that is worrying me now. I am losing my good manners. Why, yesterday, at the meeting of the Archangel Club, I held the floor 15 minutes longer than I was entitled to, not because I had anything to say, for I hadn't, but simply because I didn't want the doctor's wife to get a chance to talk. That, you know, ib one of the meanept things a woman can do." "It is truly most reprehensible," said Mr Broadway gravely. "The time for your repentance is surely at hand. But that applies to you alone. I'm not in on this reform movement. I wouldn't do a thing like that. I don't need to swear off on meat." "But you do worse things," she said. "It was only last week that you raised such a row at the theatre because you had to take the back chair in the box." "I couldn't see anything there," growled Mr Broadway. "I guess you'd have raised a row too if you had been where I was." "And that's not all, ' proceeded Mrs Broadway coolly. "Yesterday you threatened to pitch a man down three flights of stairs beau se he asked you to pay him a dollar for pressing your clothes." "I didn't owe it to him," protested Mr Broadway. "He scorched and ruined the clothes." "And you swore at the janitor for leaving the scrub pail on the landing so you could fall over it. You caught the butcher's boy by the nape of the neck and shook him till | he turned purple, simply because he called you a lobster. You kicked Mrs Lavene's dog for biting a hole in your trousers. You I snarled at the preacher, you quarrelled with the conductor over change, you shook your fist under a man's uose at the political meeting the other night, and — well, I don't know what all you have been doing. And lam growing leally \icious at times. Why, a little boy m an automatic toy exprc-s ran into tie the other day ab I was ciossmg the street, and I boxed his e&xs till my hand

stung, which was a deplorable exhibition ol the lack of self-control. After due reflection upon our moral deterioration, I am convinced that a carniverou9 diet is the source of our evil habits, and there is but one means of redemption, and that is to embrace vegetarianism." Mr Broadway groaned. "When does the starvation regime begin?" he asked. "I wish you wouldn't talk like that," she said. "You'll not starve. You will feel better than you've ever felt in your life. I have talked with a number of disciples of vegetarian doctrines, and they say that people who grovel at the shrine of meat have no concepion of the lightness " Mr Broadway interrupted with a derisive snicker. "Lightness !" he echoed. " That is well put." "And the buoyancy," she continued, "and the sense of satisfaction that animates people who have foresworn the sodden appetite for animal food. Why, already I experience a thrill of exaltation at the mere prospect of casting off the shackles of barbarism. Tomorrow morning will witness the introduction, of our new system of eating. For breakfast we will have fruit, oatmeal, eggs, toast, and coffee. I haven't planned the dinner yet, but I think the menu will be " "Fruit, oatmeal, eggs, toast, and coffee," supplemented Mr Broadway. "You can't ring many changes on that bill of fare." "Nonsense," said Mrs Broadway. "We have the whole vegetable kingdom to choose from. There is really no limit to the variety that can be devised by an inventive mind in, planning vegetarian meals. And then, if we should become satiated with mere vegetables, we have Fatuosa to fall back on. We'll never get tired of that." "What is that?" asked Mr Broadway. "A patent medicine to keep up our failing strength?" "Not at all," responded his wife. "It is a food prepared especially for vegetarians. It is a compound of the distilled nutriment of hundreds of the most nourishing herbs and vegetables the earth produces. It has only recently been put on the market, but it has sprung at once into popular favour." "That sounds like a dramatic criticism," said Mr Broadway. "Well, it isn't," said Mrs Broadway. "It is the introduction to the directions for using Fatuosa. Fatuosa comes in tablets one by two inches, and one-twelfth of an inch thick. There is more real sustenance in one of those tablets than in lib of sirloin." "It must be cheaper too," hazarded Mr Broadway. "Very much so," she assented. "Fatuosa is put up in boxes which hold just 100 wafers. 'A whole box costs 39£ cat retail, which would make the value of each wafer only — 100 into 39i goes how many times?" "It doesn't matter," interrupted Mr BToadway. "Approximately, the cost is two-fiftha of a cent. You couldn't get much of a sirloin for that" "No," said Mrs Broadway, "you couldn't. And the best thing about Fatuosa is that you cau use it in any way and it will be palatable. You can make soup of it or pudding, or you can nibble the wafers in their original state like crackers. I shall lay in a supply of Fatuosa to-morrow, for I am sure you will like it, and a week's abstinence from meat will work wonderful changes for the better in your temper." The next day the Broadways inaugurated th.G vegetarian culinary system. For breakfast they had dainty dishes in which fruits and cereals formed the chief ingredients. For dinner there were more dainty dishes, and both Mr and Mrs Broadway agreed religiously to refrain from eating meat at the midday luncheon, no matter how strong the temptation thus to defile the inner being. Mrs Broadway commented on a wonderful improvement in Mr Broadway's disposition, and he thought he could notice a difference himself. "Fact is," said Mr Broadway, "I am the quintessence of benevolence. lam simply overflowing with little deeds of kindness. I liva solely that the human race may be elevated to my high standard. ' In the beginning of the third week of the Broadways' conversion they were visited by burglars. The raid took place about 11 o'clock, before Mrs Broadway had returned from the evening session of the Archangel Club. Mr Broadway was home, and when. Mrs Broadway fcund that he had allowed the thieves deliberately to walk away with some of her best silver, her angry spirit boiled over in hot waves of recrimination. "You heard them, didn't you?" she asked"Yes," "he said. "And yet you let them get away?" she stormed. "Why didn't you stop them ? Why didn't you call the police?" Mr Broadway did not feel like telling how he had been held in abeyance at the point of a loaded gun in one man's hand while his associate ransacked the house, so he said nothing. But Mrs Broadway had other things on her mind, and she did not hesitate to, voice them. "Jasper," she said with deadly irony, "you are a coward. You haven't a bit of nerve any more. Why, I've seen the time when you were brave as a lion, and would blow the head off a dozen burglars and not think anything of it." Mr Broadway straightened up rebelliously. "I know," he said, "but I wouldn't do anything like that now. I'm too good-natured to contradict anybody. Somehow this vegetable diet " He paused and watched Mrs Broadway, who was weeping o\er the rifled china closet. When she turned away from the basket where the forks and spoons had lately reposed her face was very red and her brow was puckered. "We'll have pork chops for breakfast, she said.— From the New York Journal.