nest now, Mrs. Mince, how I wish my Marcus had such a determination!
But that boy loves to eat--Didn't you see me discard, Mrs.
Weissenheimer?"

"Say, it wasn't so easy! How I worked you can ask my husband. I bend for
thirty minutes when I get up in the morning; and if you think it's
easy, try it--a cup of hot water and a piece of dry toast for breakfast;
lettuce salad, no oil, for lunch; and a chop with dry toast for supper.
What I suffered nobody knows!"

"Batta, don't you see I lead from weakness?"

"I wish you could see my husband's partner's daughter!" quoth Mrs.
Kronfeldt. "I met her on Fifty-third Street last week, and she was so
thin I didn't know her--massage and diet did it. She ain't feeling so
well; but she looks grand--not a sign of hips!"

From an adjoining table Mrs. Silverman waved a plump and deprecatory
hand.

"Ladies, don't talk to me about dieting! I know, because I've tried it.
Now I eat what I please. It's standing up twenty minutes after meals
that does the reducing. Last summer at Arverne every lady in the hotel
did it, and never did I see anything like it! Take my word for it that
when my husband came down for Saturday and Sunday he didn't know me!"

"_Ach_, Mrs. Silverman, that was almost a grand slam! You should watch
my discard!"

"When I came home I had to have two inches taken out of every
skirt-band."

"You don't mean it!"

"Feel, Birdie, my arm. Last summer your thumbs wouldn't have met."

"I said to mamma when we saw you at the matinee last week, Mrs.
Silverman, you're grand and thin!"

"You try a little lemon in your hot water, Birdie. But you're not too
stout--I should say not! You're grand and tall and can stand it."

"Grand and tall!" echoed Mrs. Gump.

"It's a wonder she isn't as thin as a match, Mrs. Gump, the way that
girl does society! Last night it was two o'clock when she got home from
Jeanette Lefkowitz's party."

"I wish you'd heard the grand things Marcus said about you this morning
at breakfast, Miss Birdie! I bet your ears were ringing. It's not often
that he talks, either, when he's been out."

"What's this grand news I hear, Mrs. Gump, about your son being taken in
the firm and made manager of the new Loeb factory? It's wonderful for a
boy to work himself up with a firm like that."

"There's nothing sure about it yet, Mrs. Silverman. How such things get
out I don't know. Marcus is a good boy; and, believe me or not, we think
he's got a future with th