than that much on his necktie; which did not matter particularly then,
when food was plentiful; and, besides, usually he wore a pattern of
necktie which was improved by almost anything that was spilled upon
it. But it did matter to me that I had to dine on this hangnail pared
from a sheep.

A few days later I partook of a fast at what was supposed to be a
luncheon, which the Lord Mayor of London attended, in company with
sundry other notables. Earlier readings had led me to expect an
endless array of spicy and succulent viands at any table a Lord Mayor
might grace with his presence. Such, though, was not the case here. We
had eggs for an _entrée_; and after that we had plain boiled turbot,
which to my mind is no great shakes of a fish, even when tuckered up
with sauces; and after that we had coffee and cigars; and finally we
had several cracking good speeches by members of a race whose men are
erroneously believed by some Americans to be practically inarticulate
when they get up on their feet and try to talk.

There was a touch of tragedy mingled in with the comedy of the
situation in the spectacle of these Englishmen, belonging to a nation
of proverbially generous feeders, stinting themselves and cutting the
lardings and the sweetenings and the garnishments down to the limit
that there might be a greater abundance of solid sustenance
forthcoming for their fighting forces.

I do not mean by this that there was any real lack of nourishing
provender in London or anywhere else in England that I went. The long
queues of waiting patrons in front of the butcher shops during the
first few days of my sojourn very soon disappeared when people learned
that they could be sure of getting meat of one sort or another, and at