Page:The purple pennant (IA purplepennant00barb).pdf/264

Rh failed to notice, though, that he has ever refused a third helping of meat and vegetables lately! Suppose, instead of pie and chocolate layer-cake, you make some simple puddings, my dear; tapioca, rice, corn-starch. I guess he will eat those all right; and they'll be a lot better for him."

Mrs. Hull retired unconvinced, but afterwards forbore to predict disaster when Perry refused pie. Experiments with the simple desserts the Doctor had suggested were fairly successful. Perry referred to a diet-list that was pinned beside his bureau and relaxed to the extent of partaking sparingly of the puddings.

Fudge, too, was denying himself prescribed dishes, although with far less philosophy than was displayed by his friend. Pie with Fudge was a passion, and cakes containing oozing jelly or soft icing filled his soul with beatitude. When all else failed, he fell back on doughnuts. To be cut off from these things was a woeful experience to Fudge. Once he had "trained" for the Football Team, but that training had been a very sketchy performance; nothing at all like the awful self-denial he practiced—or, at least, strove to practice—now.

"I don't mind not eating starchy things," he confided to Perry one day, "but this breaking away