ily, "but I agree with you, too,
Caroline. You are to all other women what moonlight is to sunlight, or
I mean--what sunlight is to moonlight. In other words--you are the
goods."

"Don't be silly, Billy."

"There's only one thing in all this wide universe that you can't say
to me, Caroline, and 'don't be silly, Billy,' is that thing,--express
this same thing in _vers libre_ if you must say it! Look at the
handsome soup you're getting. What is the name of that soup, Molly?"

He smiled ingratiatingly at the little waitress, who always beamed at
any one of Nancy's particular friends that came into the restaurant,
and made a point of serving them if she could possibly arrange it.

"Cream of spinach," she said, "it's a special to-day."

"Beautiful soup so rich and green," Billy began in a soulful baritone,
"waiting in a hot tureen. Where's mine, Molly?"

"Dolly's bringing your first course, sir."

Billy gazed in perplexity at the half of a delicious grapefruit set
before him by the duplicate of the pretty girl who stood smiling
deprecatingly behind Caroline's chair.

"Where's my soup, Dolly?" Billy asked with a thundering sternness of
manner.

"I'm sorry, sir," Dolly began glibly, "but the soup has given out.
Will you be good enough to allow the substitution of--"

"That's a formula," Billy said. "The soup can't be out. We're the
first people in the dining-room. Go tell Miss Nancy that I will be
served with some of that green soup at once, or know the reason why."

The two waitresses exchanged glances, and went off together
suppressing giggles, to return almost immediately, their risibility
still causing them great physical inconvenience.

"Intelligent supervision, she says." Dolly exploded into the miniature
patch of muslin and ribbon that served her as an apron.

"She says that's the reason why," Molly contributed,--following her
sister's example.

"Nancy doesn't serve soup to a fat man if she can possibly avoid it.
That's part of her theory," Caroline explained. "There's no use making
a fuss about it, because you won't get it."

Billy sat looking at his grapefruit for some seconds in silence. Then
he began on it slowly.

"Well, I'll be damned," he said.

Nancy was learning a great many things very rapidly. The practical
application of her theories of feeding mankind to her actual
experiments with the shifting population of New York, revolutionized
her attitude toward the problem almost daily. She had