To this Mr. S. S. McClure, the publisher, replied: "I have never inserted cigarettes in heroes' mouths. I
"Can that stuff," admonished Miss Buck in her easy, offhand manner
have taken them out lots of times. But generally the authors use a pipe for their heroes."
There was talk, too, about "eugenic weddings." And a sensation was caused when a Southern college professor made a charge that graduates of modern women's colleges are unfitted for motherhood. The statement, it may be added, was vigorously denied by the heads of several leading women's colleges.
Rather wild, some of this, it seems to me. But when people gather together in one place, intent on some one subject, wildness is almost certain to develop. One feels, in visiting the Sanitarium, that, though many people may be restored to health there, there is yet an air of mild fanaticism over all. Health fanaticism. The passionate light of the health hunt flashes in the stranger's eye as he looks at you and wonders what is wrong with you. And whatever may be wrong with you, or with him, you are both there to shake it off. That is your sole business in life. You are going to get over it, even if you have to live for weeks on "Nuttolene" or other products of the diet kitchen.
"Nuttolene!"
It is always an experience for the sophisticated palate to meet a brand-new taste. In "Nuttolene" my palate encountered one, and before dinner was over it met several more.
"Nuttolene" is served in a slab, resembling, as nearly as anything I can think of, a good-sized piece of shoemaker's wax. In flavor it is confusing. Some faint taste about it hinted that it was intended to resemble turkey; an impression furthered by the fact that cranberry sauce was served on the same plate. But what it was made of I could not detect. It was not unpleasant to taste, nor yet did I find it appetizing. Rather, I should classify it in the broad category of uninteresting food. However, after such a statement, it is but fair to add that the food I find most interesting is almost always rich and indigestible. Perhaps, therefore, I shall be obliged to go to Battle Creek some day, to subsist on "Nuttolene" and kindred substances as penance for my gastronomic indiscretions. Better men than I have done that thing—men and women from all over the globe. And Battle Creek has benefited them. Nevertheless, I hope that I shall never have to go there. My feeling about the place, quite without regard to the cures which it effects, is much like that of my companion:
At luncheon I asked him to save his menu for me, so that I might have the data for this article. He put it in his pocket. But he kept pulling it out again, every little while, throughout the afternoon, and suggesting that I copy it all off into my notebook.