Fatty took on a look of cheer.
“That’s what,” he said. “Glad you noticed it. Everybody does! I lost three ounces last week.”
“Break it gently, gently to me,” said Ernest. “Well, you are going down hill fast, I should say. Do you diet?”
“Yes,” said Fatty. “That’s the way I am doing it. It’s hard, but it works.”
“Let’s hear how you do it,” said Ernest.
“Well,” said Fatty, “I only eat eight pancakes every morning, and one glass of milk, and next week I am going to cut down on cereals. Only take one bowlful, you know. Cream is awfully fattening.”
“You are going to make it, sure as shooting,” said Ernest delightedly. “Gee, I am proud of you! But you want to go slow. Don’t let this diet stuff run away with you. I knew a fellow once—”
“Did he die?” asked Fatty suspiciously.
Ernest looked grieved.
“Die? No!” he said. “It was this way. He was a young chap, and fat. My, he was certainly well padded! Well, he wanted to go in for football, and he was afraid to play the way he was, because once he tried it and someone took him for the pigskin and kicked him clear off the gridiron. So he started in just as you are, cutting out part of his pancakes, then cereals, then bread and butter, and only ate a square inch of meat and so on, the way the books said to do. I forgot to say that he was doing this by the correspondence school method. After awhile he commenced to lose, and he lost and he lost, and he went down from two hundred pounds to one-eighty, and then to one-fifty and next he tipped the beam at one-ten. So it went on. He commenced eating more cakes and things, but he couldn’t stop. Poor chap, I’ll never forget the last time I saw him!” Ernest paused.