I will begin my treatise by an extract from a collection of more than five hundred dialogues, which at various times I have had with persons menaced with obesity.
AN OBESE.—What delicious bread! where do you get it?
I.—From Limet, in the Rue Richelieu, baker to their Royal Highness, the Due d'Orleans, and the Prince de Conde. I took it from him because he was my neighbour, and have kept to him because he is the best bread maker in the world.
OBESE.—I will remember the address. I eat a great deal of bread, and with such as this could do without any dinner.
OBESE No. 2.—What are you about? You are eating your soup, but set aside the Carolina rice it contains! I.—Ah: that it is a regimen I subject myself to.
OBESE.—It is a bad regimen. I am fond of rice pates and all such things. Nothing is more nourishing.
AN IMMENSE OBESE.—Do me the favor to pass me the potatoes before you. They go so fast that I fear I shall not be in time.
I.—There they are, sir.
OBESE.—But you will take some? There are enough for two, and after us the deluge.
I.—Not I. I look on the potatoe as a great preservative against famine; nothing, however, seems to me so pre-eminently fade.