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But here aboard this Pullman on this, the dedicatory day of my self-imposed martyrdom, I could not lose myself as I had on that former historic occasion in the ardor of chasing the small game of the country. By four o’clock in the afternoon I could appreciate the sensations of a conch shell on a parlor whatnot. I had a feeling that if anyone were to press his ear up against me he would hear a murmuring sound as of distant sea waves. Yet, mark you, I held bravely out, fighting still the good fight. This, then, was my dinner, if such it might in truth be called: Clear soup, a smallish slice of rare roast beef cut shaving thin, gluten bread sparsely buttered, a cloud of watercress no larger than a man’s hand, another raw apple and a bit of domestic cheese–nothing rich, nothing exotic, no melting French fromages, no creamy Danish pastries.

Only when I reached my demi-tasse, which I took straight, did I permit myself a touch of luxury. I lit my cigar with a genuine imported Swedish parlor match.

Followed then the first comforting manifestation, the first gratefully registered taste of recompense for my privations. I had to speak that night and in a large hall, too, and I found my voice to be clearer and stronger than usual, and found, also, that I spoke with much less effort than usual. I was sure partial fasting during the day was bearing fruits in the evening, and I was right, as subsequent evening experiences proved to me. I had rather dreaded that hunger gripes would make my night a sleepless one, but it didn’t happen. I may have dreamed longing dreams about victuals, but I tore off eight solid hours of unbridled and–I dare say–uproarious rest.

CHAPTER X

Wherein Our Hero Falters

Next day I kept it up, varying the first day’s menus slightly, but keeping the bulk consumption down, roughly, to about one-half or possibly one-third what my rations formerly had been. Before night of the second day that all-gone sensation had vanished. Already I had made the agreeable discovery that I could get along and be reasonably happy on from 35 to 50 per cent of what until then I had deludedly thought was required to nourish me. Before the week ended I felt fitter and sprier in every way than I had for years past; more alive, more interested in things, quicker on my feet and brisker in my mental processes than in a long time. The chronic logy, foggy feeling in my head disappeared and failed to return. I may add that to date it still has not returned. Relieved of pressure against its valves–at least I assume that was what came to pass–my heart began functioning as I assume a normal heart should function, and at once the sense of oppression in the neighborhood of the heart was gone.

Within the same week I took most joyful note of the fact that I was losing flesh in the vicinities where mainly I craved to lose it amidships and at the throat. I still had a double chin in front, but the third one, which I carried behind as a spare–the one which ran all the way round my neck and lapped at the back like a clergyman’s collar–was melting away. And unless I was woefully mistaken, I no longer had to fight so desperate a battle with the waistband of my trousers when I dressed in the mornings.

I was not mistaken. Glory be and likewise selah! My first and second mezzanines were visibly shrinking. By these signs and portents was I stimulated to continue the campaign so auspiciously launched and so satisfactorily progressing.

I shall not deny that in the second week I did some backsliding. The swing of the tour carried me into the South. It was the South in the splendor of the young springtime when the cardinal bird sang his mating song. With brocading dandelions each pasture gloriously became even as the Field of the Cloth of Gold; and lo, the beginning of the strawberry shortcake season overlapped the last of the smoked-hog-jowl-and-turnip-greens period, and the voice of the turtle was heard in the land.