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 that Mame was getting a too prolonged one-sided view of things again, but I had no way to change it. Personally, I was wrapped up in a desire to eat. I had hallucinations of hash and visions of ham, and I kept saying to myself all the time, ‘What’ll you have to eat, Jeff?—what’ll you order, now, old man, when the waiter comes?’ I picks out to myself all sorts of favourites from the bill of fare, and imagines them coming. I guess it’s that way with all very hungry men. They can’t get their cogitations trained on anything but something to eat. It shows that the little table with the broken-legged caster and the imitation Worcester sauce and the napkin covering up the coffee stains is the paramount issue, after all, instead of the question of immortality or peace between nations.

“I sat there, musing along, arguing with myself quite heated as to how I’d have my steak—with mushrooms or à la créole. Mame was on the other seat, pensive, her head leaning on her hand. ‘Let the potatoes come home-fried,’ I states in my mind, ‘and brown the hash in the pan, with nine poached eggs on the side.’ I felt, careful, in my own pockets to see if I could find a peanut or a grain or two of popcorn.

“Night came on again with the river still rising and the rain still falling. I looked at Mame and I noticed that desperate look on her face that a girl always wears when she passes an ice-cream lair. I knew