th noncoms; I have had grub
with company commanders and I have dined with generals--and always the
meal was flavoured with the good, strong man-talk of the real
he-American.

The food was of the best quality and there was plenty of it for all,
and some to spare. One reason--among others--why the Yank fought so
well was because he was so well fed between fights.

The very best meals I had while abroad were vouchsafed me during the
three days I spent with a front-line regiment as a guest of the
colonel of one of our negro outfits. To this colonel a French
general, out of the goodness of his heart, had loaned his cook, a
whiskered poilu, who, before he became a whiskered poilu, had been the
chef in the castle of one of the richest men in Europe.

This genius cooked the midday meals and the dinners; but, because no
Frenchman can understand why any one should require for breakfast
anything more solid than a dry roll and a dab of honey, the
preparation of the morning meal was intrusted to a Southern black boy,
who, I may say, was a regular skillet hound. And this gifted youth
wrestled with the matutinal ham and eggs and flipped the flapjacks for
the headquarters mess.

On a full Southern breakfast and a wonderful French luncheon and
dinner a grown man can get through the day very, very well indeed, as
I bear witness.

Howsomever, as spring wore into summer and summer ran its course, I
began to long with a constantly increasing longing for certain
distinctive dishes to be found nowhere except in my native clime;
brook trout, for example, and roasting ears, and--Oh, lots of things!
So I came home to get them.

And, now that I've had them, I often catch myself in the act of
thoughtfully dwelling upon the fond remembrances of those spicy
fragrant stews eaten in peasant kitchens, and those army doughnuts,
and those slices of bacon toasted at daybreak on the lids of mess kits
in British dugouts.

I suppose they call contentment a jewel because it is so rare.

* * * * *

BY IRVIN S. COBB

FICTION

THOSE TIMES AND THESE
LOCAL COLOR
OLD JUDGE PRIEST
FIBBLE, D.D.
BACK HOME
THE ESCAPE OF MR. TRIMM

WIT AND HUMOR

"SPEAKING OF OPERATIONS--"
EUROPE REVISED
ROUGHING IT DE LUXE
COBB'S BILL OF FARE
COBB'S ANATOMY

MISCELLANY

THE THUNDERS OF SILENCE
"SPEAKING OF PRUSSIANS--"
PATHS OF GLORY

GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
NEW YORK

End of Project Gutenberg's Eating in Two or