There can’t be very many of them; still it is good to know that the authorities have made a beginning.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  The Knight-Errant. “MY DEAR LADY, I HAVE THE HAPPINESS OF RESCUING YOU FROM A GREAT PERIL.”

The Lady (indignantly). “HOW DARE YOU ADDRESS ME, SIR, WITHOUT A PROPER INTRODUCTION?”

The Knight-Errant. “MADAM, IF YOU HAD SPOKEN SOONER I WOULD HAVE ASKED OUR FRIEND HERE TO FULFIL THAT NECESSARY SOCIAL OBLIGATION.”]

* * * * *

HOW TO DINE WISELY—­BUT NOT TOO WELL.

We are exceedingly pleased to note that our contemporary, The Pall Mall Gazette, preaches frugality in the most practical manner by providing a daily menu card, with helpful comments on the preparation of the viands.  The time for an unrestricted dietary is still far off, and it is a work of national importance to encourage the thrifty use of what our contemporary calls “left-overs.”  Herein we are only following ancient and honourable precedent, one of the earliest lyrics in the language informing us that

  “What they did not eat that day
  The Queen next morning fried.”

Our only fault with the P.M.G.’s chef is that he is inclined to err on the side of generosity.  The dinner for January 6th, for instance, is composed of no fewer than four dishes, of which only one is a “left-over.”  The bill of fare opens with “Kipper meat on toast”; it proceeds with a fine crescendo to “Beef a la jardiniere,” followed by “Fried macaroni,” and declining gracefully on “Cabinet pudding.”

“Left-over meat,” as our contemporary remarks, “is more of a problem nowadays than ever before, for, being generally imported, it is not so tender as the pre-war home-grown meat to begin with, and the small amounts that can be saved from the rationed joint rarely seem sufficient for another meal.”  An excellent plan, therefore, would be to provide all the members of the family with magnifying-glasses.  It is easy to believe a thing to be large when it looks large.  Also there is great virtue in calling a thing by a nutritious name.  “Kipper on toast” is not nearly so rich in carbohydrates, calories and aplanatic amygdaloids as “Kipper meat.”  As for the preparation of “left-overs” in such a way as to render them both appetising and palatable, “all that need be done is to add a few vegetables and cook them over again.”  And herein, as our instructor most luminously observes, “lies one solution of the problem of quantity, for the amount of vegetables used, if not the meat, can be measured by the size of the family appetite.”  Once more the wisdom of the ancients comes to our help, for, as it has been said, “the less you eat the hungrier you are, and the hungrier you are the more you eat.  Therefore the less you eat the more you eat.”  The instructions for the preparation of a sauce for