"I have no desire to deny that I eat sauerkraut, you little ape," he replied with scorn. "I come of German ancestry, comrades. My great-grandfather helped to create this nation. He was a pure-blooded German. I inherit from him my personal likes and dislikes. Sauerkraut is the best breakfast food ever served to man. It is a pure vegetable malt. It is wholesome, clean, healthful, and keeps the system of a brain worker in perfect order. I eat it with ham gravy and good hot wheat biscuits. It is some trouble for the cook to prepare this particular kind of soft tea-biscuit for me. I paid him a little extra for this bread--not the kraut. I suggest to your honours that you make sauerkraut a standard breakfast diet as a health measure. They may kick a little at first, but I assure you it will improve the health and character of the colony. If this little chap who accuses me were put on a diet of kraut for breakfast it might even now make a man of him. I not only have nothing to apologize for, I bring you good tidings. I proclaim sauerkraut the only perfect health food for breakfast, and I suggest its compulsory use. The man who sits next to me eats snails. I think the habit a filthy and dangerous one. If you are going into this question, do it thoroughly. Let us fix by law what is fit to eat, and stick to it. I'll back sauerkraut before any dietary commission ever organized on earth." The council appointed a commission to conduct hearings and make a rigid code of laws establishing the kind of foods for each meal. Again Roland Adair, the Bard of Ramcat, rose, shook his long hair and cleared his throat. Norman lifted his hand for silence. "I anticipate the poet's words. You solemnly protest against the further establishment of a tyranny which shall dare prescribe your food from day to day. I grieve over the necessity of these laws and mingle my tears with yours in advance. But, in the language of a distinguished citizen of the old republic, 'we are confronted by a condition, not a theory.' The council stands adjourned." The Bard poured his bitter protest into Catherine's patient ears and left with a growing conviction of her wisdom. The woman with the drooping eyelids stood watching his retreating figure while a quiet smile of contempt played about her full, sensuous lips. CHAPTER XX THE UNCONVENTIONAL Within a week it was necessary to appoint a commission to formulate an elaborate code of laws regulating various nuisances which had developed in the community. A kitchen-boy insisted on playing a cornet in his room. He didn't know a musical from a promissory note but he swore he'd become a musician before he died. His efforts came near proving fatal to his neighbours before he was suppressed. Several women had pet parrots. The people who lived near by strenuously objected. The parrots had to go.