"That meal set me back $34.75. When I went out I noticed the plain
sponge cakes and fruit cakes and dried-apple pies--things that had been
out of my reach fur twenty years, and--My! but they did look common and
unappetisin'. I kind of shivered at the sight of 'em.

"I ordered another one of the big cakes and two more lemon pies fur the
next day.

"Fur four days I led a life of what they call 'unbridled
licentiousness' while that Chink pandered to me. I never was any hand
fur drink, but I cut loose in that fancy-food joint, now I tell you.

"The fifth day I begun to taper off. I begun to have a suspicion the
stuff was made of sawdust with plasty of Paris fur frostin'. The sixth
day I was sure it was sawdust, and my shameful debauch comes to an end
right there. I remembered the story about the feller that cal'lated his
chickens wouldn't tell any different, so he fed 'em sawdust instead of
corn-meal, and by-and-bye a settin' of eggs hatched out--twelve of the
chickens had wooden legs and the thirteenth was a woodpecker. Say, I
felt so much like two cords of four-foot stove wood that it made me
plumb nervous to ketch sight of a saw-buck.

"It took jest three weeks fur me to get right inside again. My, but
meat victuals and all like that did taste mighty scrumptious when I
could handle 'em again.

"After that when I'd been out in the hills fur a season I'd get that
hankerin' back, and when I come in I'd have a little frosted-cake orgy
now and then. But I kep' myself purty well in hand. I never overdone it
like that again, fur you see I'd learned something. First off, there