if you peel them potatoes you lose out. They're new Bermudas. You want
to scrape 'em. Lemme show you."

She took a potato and the knife, and began to demonstrate.

"Oh, thank you," breathed the artist. "I didn't know. And I _did_ hate
to see the thick peeling go; it seemed such a waste. But I thought
they always had to be peeled. When you've got only potatoes to eat,
the peelings count, you know."

"Say, kid," said Hetty, staying her knife, "you ain't up against it,
too, are you?"

The miniature artist smiled starvedly.

"I suppose I am. Art--or, at least, the way I interpret it--doesn't
seem to be much in demand. I have only these potatoes for my dinner.
But they aren't so bad boiled and hot, with a little butter and salt."

"Child," said Hetty, letting a brief smile soften her rigid features,
"Fate has sent me and you together. I've had it handed to me in the
neck, too; but I've got a chunk of meat in my, room as big as a
lap-dog. And I've done everything to get potatoes except pray for 'em.
Let's me and you bunch our commissary departments and make a stew of
'em. We'll cook it in my room. If we only had an onion to go in it!
Say, kid, you haven't got a couple of pennies that've slipped down
into the lining of your last winter's sealskin, have you? I could step
down to the corner and get one at old Giuseppe's stand. A stew without
an onion is worse'n a matinée without candy."