I could dish you up a fresh
breakfast every day for a month. Your conservative tendencies must be
very strong, Mrs. Gradinger, if they lead you to this conclusion."

"Conservative! On the contrary, I--that is, my husband--always votes for
Progressive candidates at every election," said Mrs. Gradinger, dropping
into her platform intonation, at the sound of which consternation arose
in every breast. "I have, moreover, a theory that we might reform our
diet radically, as well as all other institutions; but before I expound
this, I should like to say a few words on the waste of wholesome food
which goes on. For instance, I went for a walk in the woods yesterday
afternoon, where I came upon a vast quantity of fungi which our ignorant
middle classes would pronounce to be poisonous, but which I--in common
with every child of the intelligent working-man educated in a board
school where botany is properly taught--knew to be good for food."

"Excuse me one moment," said Sir John, "but do they really use
board-school children as tests to see whether toadstools are poisonous
or not?"

"I do not think anything I said justified such an inference," said Mrs.
Gradinger in the same solemn drawl; "but I may remark that the children
are taught from illustrated manuals accurately drawn and coloured. Well,
to come back to the fungi, I took the trouble to measure the plot on
which they were growing, and found it just ten yards square. The average
weight of edible fungus per square yard was just an ounce, or a hundred
and twelve pounds per acre. Now, there must be at least twenty millions
of acres in the United Kingdom capable of producing these fungi without
causing the smallest damage to any other crop, wherefore it seems that,
owing to our lack of instruction, we are wasting some million tons
of good food per annum; and I may remark that this calculation
pre-supposes, that each fungus springs only once in the season; but I
have reason to believe that certain varieties would give five or six
gatherings between May and October, so the weight produced would be
enormously greater than the quantity I have named."

Here Mrs. Gradinger paused to finish her coffee, which was getting cold,
and before she could resume, Sir John had taken up the parole. "I think
the smaller weight will suffice for the present, until the taste for
strange fungi has developed, or the pressure of population increased.
And before stimulating a vastly increased supply,