like a woman banting. For breakfast she takes a swallow of lukewarm
water and half of a soda cracker. For luncheon she takes the other
half of the cracker and leaves off the water. For dinner she orders
everything on the menu except the date and the name of the
proprietor. She does this in order to give her strength to go on
with the treatment.

No fat man would diet that way; but no matter which way he does
diet it doesn't do him any good. Health exercises only make him
muscle-sore and bring on what the Harvard ball team call the Charles
W. Horse; while banting results in attacks of those kindred
complaints--the Mollie K. Grubbs and the Fan J. Todds.

Walking is sometimes recommended and the example of the camel is
pointed out, the camel being a creature that can walk for days and
days. But, as has been said by some thinking person, who in
thunder wants to be a camel? The subject of horseback riding is
also brought up frequently in this connection. It is one of the
commonest delusions among fat men that horseback riding will bring
them down and make them sylphlike and willowy. I have several fat
men among my lists of acquaintances who labor under this fallacy.
None of them was ever a natural-born horseback rider; none of them
ever will be. I like to go out of a bright morning and take a
comfortable seat on a park bench--one park bench is plenty roomy
enough if nobody else is using it--and sit there and watch these
unhappy persons passing single file along the bridle-path. I sit
there and gloat until by rights I ought to be required to take out
a gloater's license.

Mind you, I have no prejudice against horseback riding as such.