nd in
nine cases out of ten she was able to get it served and eaten
without protest. Some of her regular patrons began to change weight
gradually, a heavy man or two became less heavy, and a wraithlike
girl now and then took on a new bloom and substantiality. These were
the triumphs for which Nancy lived. Her only regret was that she
was not able to give to each her personal time and attention, and
establish herself on a footing with her patrons where she might learn
from their own lips the secrets of their metabolism.

She was not known as the proprietor of the place. In fact, the
management of the restaurant was kept a careful secret from those who
frequented it and with the habitual indifference of New Yorkers to the
power behind the throne, so long as its affairs were manipulated in
good and regular order, they soon ceased to feel any apparent
curiosity about it. Betty, who sometimes rebelled at remaining so
scrupulously incognita, defiantly took the limelight at intervals and
moved among the assembled guests with an authoritative and possessive
air, adjusting and rearranging small details, and acknowledging the
presence of _habitues_, but since her attentions were popularly
supposed to be those of a superior head waitress, she soon tired of
the gesture of offering them.

Nancy's intention had been to allow the restaurant to speak for
itself, and then at the climactic moment to allow her connection with
it to be discovered, and to speak for it with all the force and
earnestness of which she was capable. She had meant to stand sponsor
for the practical working theory on which her experiment was based,
and she had already partially formulated interviews with herself in
which she modestly acknowledged the success of that experiment, but
the untoward direction in which it was developing made such a
revelation inexpedient.

There was one regular patron to whom she was peculiarly anxious to
remain incognita. Collier Pratt made it his almost invariable habit to
come sauntering toward the table in the corner, under the life-sized
effigy of the _Venus de Medici_, at seven o'clock in the evening, and
that table was scrupulously reserved for him. To it were sent the
choicest of all the viands that Outside Inn could command. Michael was
tacitly sped on his way with his teapot full of claret. Gaspard did
amazing things with the breasts of ducks and segments of orange, with
squab chicken stuffed with new corn, with _filets de