“Now look at that!  Now look at that!” he often said peevishly and with a kind of sickly whine in his voice when he saw one being put before him.  “He knows I don’t like potatoes, and see what I get!  And look at the little bit of a thing he gives you!  It’s a shame, the way he nags people, especially over this food question.  I don’t think there’s a thing to it.  I don’t think eating a big potato does me a bit of good, or you the little one, and yet I have to eat the blank-blank things or get out.  And I need to get on my feet just now.”

“Well, cheer up,” I said sympathetically and with an eye on the large potato perhaps.  “He isn’t always looking, and we can fix it.  You mash up your big potato and put butter and salt on it, and I’ll do the same with my little one.  Then when he’s not looking we’ll shift.”

“Oh, that’s all right,” he commented, “but we’d better look out.  If he sees us he’ll be as sore as the devil.”

This system worked well enough for a time, and for days I was getting all the potato I wanted and congratulating myself on my skill, when one day as I was slyly forking potatoes out of his dish, moved helpfully in my direction, I saw Culhane approaching and feared that our trick had been discovered.  It had.  Perhaps some snaky waitress has told on us, or he had seen us, even from his table.

“Now I know what’s going on here at this table,” he growled savagely, “and I want you two to cut it out.  This big boob here” (he was referring to my esteemed self) “who hasn’t strength of will or character enough to keep himself in good health and has to be brought up here by his brother, hasn’t brains enough to see that when I plan a thing for his benefit it is for his benefit, and not mine.  Like most of the other damned fools that come up here and waste their money and my time, he thinks I’m playing some cute game with him—­tag or something that will let him show how much cuter he is than I am.  And he’s supposed to be a writer and have a little horse-sense!  His brother claims it, anyhow.  And as for this other simp here,” and now he was addressing the assembled diners while nodding toward my friend, “it hasn’t been three weeks since he was begging to know what I could do for him.  And now look at him—­entering into a petty little game of potato-cheating!

“I swear,” he went on savagely, talking to the room in general, “sometimes I don’t know what to do with such damned fools.  The right thing would be to set these two, and about fifty others in this place, out on the main road with their trunks and let them go to hell.  They don’t deserve the attention of a conscientious man.  I prohibit gambling—­what happens?  A lot of nincompoops and mental lightweights with more money than brains sneak off into a field of an afternoon on the excuse that they are going for a walk, and then sit down and lose or win a bucket of money just to show off what hells of fellows they are, what sports, what big ‘I