"I don't quite understand," said Jimmieboy. "One of my pneumatic mince pies will show you in a jiffy," returned the landlord. "One pie if properly cared for will last a lifetime"-- "Not with a real live boy in the house it won't," said Jimmieboy, positively. "That may be all very true," said the landlord, "but if the real live boy ate one of those pies he would cease to be a real live boy. You see this pie is made of rubber, and all you've got to do is to blow it up with an air pump and serve it." "But you called it mince pie," said Jimmieboy, very much disgusted. "Well, it's my pie," said the landlord. "I guess I've got a right to call it what I please." "But you said it saved doctors' bills," put in Bikey, who was no better pleased with this absurd invention than was Jimmieboy. "And I said right," said the landlord, with a self-satisfied smile. "It's just this way:--If you eat mince pie it gives you indigestion and you have to send for the doctor, and then you get a bill for several dollars. Now, with my pie it's different. You can't eat it, and therefore you can't get indigestion, and you don't have to send for a doctor. Wherefore, as I said, it saves doctors' bills. This is the latest make--I make a new kind every year, just as the bicycle makers make new wheels every year. A 1902 safety pneumatic mince pie costs $2; a 1901 pie I sell for $1.50." "And what is the difference?" asked Jimmieboy, beginning to be amused. "The air in this year's pie is fresher, that's all," said the landlord. "I suppose your air biscuits are of the same kind?" asked Bikey. "Yes," said the landlord, "except that I flavor 'em. If you're fond of vanilla, or strawberry, or any other flavor, I perfume the air that is pumped into them. They're very nice." "What are those things on the top shelf?" asked Jimmieboy. "They look like sausages." "They are sausages. I make 'em out of old tires, and they are very good and solid. Then, over there in the icebox, I have rubber steaks and chickens--in fact, all kinds of pneumatic food. You have no idea how well they last, and how good they are for the digestion--if you could only get used to them. That's the greatest trouble I have, getting people used to them." "Don't you have any real good food here?" asked Bikey. "Real? Why, my dear fellow," ejaculated the landlord, "what could you ask more real than those rubber viands? You could drop a railway engine on one of those rubber sausages and it would be just as solid as ever." "But you can't live on air!" protested Jimmieboy. "No more can you live without it," said the landlord, unlocking the door and opening it, some disappointment manifested in his countenance. "If you will come up to the hospital now, sir," he added, addressing Bikey, "I'll see what can be done to repair your wounds. I am sorry you do not seem to appreciate the good things in my larder."