"You can believe me or not, Mrs. Gump; but, so sure as my name is Mince, I got down from a hundred and ninety-two to a hundred and seventy-four in two months! Reducing ain't so bad when you get used to it."
"Honest now, Mrs. Mince, how I wish my Marcus had such a determination! But that boy loves to eat—Didn't you see me discard, Mrs. Weissenheimer?"
"Say, it wasn't so easy! How I worked you can ask my husband. I bend for thirty minutes when I get up in the morning; and if you think it's easy, try it—a cup of hot water and a piece of dry toast for breakfast; lettuce salad, no oil, for lunch; and a chop with dry toast for supper. What I suffered nobody knows!"
"Batta, don't you see I lead from weakness?"
"I wish you could see my husband's partner's daughter!" quoth Mrs. Kronfeldt. "I met her on Fifty-third Street last week, and she was so thin I didn't know her—massage and diet did it. She ain't feeling so well; but she looks grand—not a sign of hips!"
From an adjoining table Mrs. Silverman waved a plump and deprecatory hand.
"Ladies, don't talk to me about dieting! I know, because I've tried it. Now I eat what I please. It's standing up twenty minutes after meals that does the reducing. Last summer at Arverne every lady in the hotel did it, and never did I see anything like it! Take my word for it that when my husband came down for Saturday and Sunday he didn't know me!"
"Ach, Mrs. Silverman, that was almost a grand slam! You should watch my discard!"
"When I came home I had to have two inches taken out of every skirt-band."
"You don't mean it!"