The grill-room clock struck eleven with the respectful
unobtrusiveness of one whose mission in life is to be ignored.
When the flight of time should really have rendered abstinence and
migration imperative the lighting apparatus would signal the fact
in the usual way.

Six minutes later Clovis approached the supper-table, in the
blessed expectancy of one who has dined sketchily and long ago.

"I'm starving," he announced, making an effort to sit down
gracefully and read the menu at the same time.

"So I gathered;" said his host, "from the fact that you were
nearly punctual. I ought to have told you that I'm a Food
Reformer. I've ordered two bowls of bread-and-milk and some
health biscuits. I hope you don't mind."

Clovis pretended afterwards that he didn't go white above the
collar-line for the fraction of a second.

"All the same," he said, "you ought not to joke about such things.
There really are such people. I've known people who've met them.
To think of all the adorable things there are to eat in the world,
and then to go through life munching sawdust and being proud of
it."

"They're like the Flagellants of the Middle Ages, who went about
mortifying themselves."