“Oh, no, I’m not hungry; you see, I don’t eat luncheon.
I have a cup of coffee in the morning and then dinner, but I never eat more than one thing for luncheon.
I was speaking for you.”
“Oh, I see!”
Then a terrible thing happened.
While we were waiting for the coffee, the head waiter, with an ingratiating smile on his false face, came up to us bearing a large basket full of huge peaches.
They had the blush of an innocent girl; they had the rich tone of an Italian landscape.
But surely peaches were not in season then ?
Lord knew what they cost.
I knew too—a little later, for my guest, going on with her conversation, absent-mindedly took one.
“You see, you’ve filled your stomach with a lot of meat”—my one miserable little chop—“and you can’t eat any more.
But I’ve just had a snack and I shall enjoy a peach.”
The bill came and when I paid it I found that I had only enough for a quite inadequate tip.
Her eyes rested for an instant on the three francs I left for the waiter and I knew that she thought me mean.
But when I walked out of the restaurant I had the whole month before me and not a penny in my pocket.
“Follow my example,” she said as we shook hands, “and never eat more than one thing for luncheon.”
“I’ll do better than that,” I retorted.
“I’ll eat nothing for dinner tonight.”
“Humorist!” she cried gaily, jumping into a cab.
“You’re quite a humorist!”
But I have had my revenge at last.
I do not believe that I am a vindictive man, but when the immortal gods take a hand in the matter it is pardonable to observe the result with complacency.
Today she weighs three hundred pounds.