Page:Samuel F. Batchelder - Bits of Harvard History (1924).pdf/156

 monotonous, and unwholesome that it is a wonder how they existed at all.

And even of this atrocious fodder there was rarely enough. The hearty appetites of growing boys were regulated by a set of elderly dyspeptics desperately afraid of losing their grip on a few shillings. Not for nothing has the phrase “short commons” passed into our permanent vernacular. The daily quotas were meticulously fixed at amounts just sufficient to support life—a pint of milk, half a biscuit, one piece of butter, a tumblerful of beer, etc. Second helpings were unheard of. Instead, the finances were shrewdly eked out by the plan of charging extra for everything beyond the irreducible minimum. These extra orders were called “sizings,” and were so universally needed—in fact expected—that the old term-bills always charged for food under the head of “Commons and Sizings.”

The disgusting conditions in the hall, already touched upon, were in great part another result of this policy of over-frugality. And perhaps worst of all, though much might have been done (after the manner of Latin races) to make palatable dishes out of unpromising materials, there was never money enough to pay for good cooks. The incumbents of that vitally important position had