"Yes, I do," said Jimmieboy.
"Then you'd better give up trying to get the peaches and cherries," said the Parallelopipedon, firmly. "I won't have 'em. You can shoot 'em at me at the rate of a can a minute for ninety-seven years, and I'll never surrender. I hate 'em."
"But what am I to do, then?" queried the little general. "What must I do to capture you?"
"Get something in the place of the cherries and peaches that I like, that's all. Very simple matter, that."
"But I don't know what you like," said Jimmieboy. "I never took lunch with you."
"No—and you never will," answered the Parallelopipedon. "And for a very good reason. I never eat lunch, breakfast, tea, or supper. I never eat anything but dinner, and I eat that four times a day."
Jimmieboy laughed, half with mirth at the oddity of the Parallelopipedon's habit of eating, and half with the pleasure it gave him to think of what a delectable habit it was. Four dinners a day seemed to him to be the height of bliss, and he almost wished he too were a Parallelopipedon, that he might enjoy the same privilege.
"Don't you ever eat between meals?" he asked, after a minute of silence.
"Never," said the Parallelopipedon. "Never. There isn't time for it in the first place, and in the second there's never anything left between meals for me to eat. But if you had ever dined with me you'd know mighty well what I like, for I always have the same thing at every single dinner—two platefuls of each thing. It's a fine plan, that of having the same dishes at every dinner, day after day. Your stomach always knows what to expect, and is ready for it, so you don't get cholera morbus. If you want me to, I'll tell you what I always have, and what you must get me before you can coax me back."
"Thank you," said Jimmieboy. "I'll be very much obliged."