Billy; "and when it's
really serious, too. Now listen," she admonished, picking up the
book again. "'If a man consumes a large amount of meat, and very few
vegetables, his diet will be too rich in protein, and too lacking in
carbohydrates. On the other hand, if he consumes great quantities of
pastry, bread, butter, and tea, his meals will furnish too much energy,
and not enough building material.' There, Bertram, don't you see?"

"Oh, yes, I see," teased Bertram. "William, better eat what you can
to-night. I foresee it's the last meal of just _food_ we'll get for some
time. Hereafter we'll have proteins, fats, and carbohydrates made into
calory croquettes, and--"

"Bertram!" scolded Billy.

But Bertram would not be silenced.

"Here, just let me take that book," he insisted, dragging the volume
from Billy's reluctant fingers. "Now, William, listen. Here's your
breakfast to-morrow morning: strawberries, 100 calories; whole-wheat
bread, 75 calories; butter, 100 calories (no second helping, mind you,
or you'd ruin the balance and something would topple); boiled eggs, 200
calories; cocoa, 100 calories--which all comes to 570 calories. Sounds
like an English bill of fare with a new kind of foreign money, but
'tisn't, really, you know. Now for luncheon you can have tomato soup, 50
calories; potato salad--that's cheap, only 30 calories, and--" But Billy
pulled the book away then, and in righteous indignation carried it to
the kitchen.

"You don't deserve anything to eat," she declared with dignity, as she
returned to the dining-room.

"No?" queried Bertram, his eyebrows uplifted. "Well, as near as I can
make out we aren't going to get--much."

But Billy did not deign to answer this.

In spite of Bertram's tormenting gibes, Billy did, for some days,
arrange her meals in accordance with the wonderful table of food given
in "Correct Eating for Efficiency." To be sure, Bertram, whatever he
found before him during those days, anxiously asked whether he were
eating fats, proteins, or carbohydrates; and he worried openly as to the
possibility of his meal's producing one calory too much or too little,
thus endangering his "balance."

Billy alternately laughed and scolded, to the unvarying good nature of
her husband. As it happened, however, even this was not for long, for
Billy ran across a magazine article on food adulteration; and this so
filled her with terror lest, in the food served, she were killing her
family by slo