"Then what I want you to do is this--and, mind, I'm going to take charge of the whole thing and foot the bills; they won't be much--I don't want you to do a lick of work for the next four weeks. I want you to stay in your room about all the time: you mustn't even walk about much. I want you to eat nothing but potatoes and bread with about a quarter of an inch thick of butter and sugar on it. Eat lots! You can have meat, too, if it's very fat. And--you're a sober man and I don't believe you'll get a fixed habit in four weeks--I'm going to send a keg of beer to your room in the morning, and another whenever one is finished. You're to drink a big mug of it every hour." "Blazes," interjected Pat, "Th' ould lady'll murther me. Oi'll be drunk, sure, an' me breath will breed a peshtiliench." "No it won't. You'll soon get used to it. We begin to-morrow." And the next day Pat began, resolutely, though with fears. Wheaton visited him frequently and encouraged him in every way; "I'll get you all the newspapers and teach you to play solitaire--it's a fine game with cards when you're alone. You're a goose," he said "and I'm training you for _pate de fois gras_," but Pat did not know what that meant. He only knew that times were queer. He was afraid of the "ould lady." The third morning he came down beaming. "It's quare," he announced. "Oi belave th' ould lady do be fallin' in love wid me over agin, she does be that foine an' carressin' wid me. 'Pat!' says she, 'you're the new mon intoirely! You do be as gentle as a lamb an' it's good to see ye so playful wid the childer' says she. 'Oi'm in love wid ye, Pat' says she. An' Oi all the toime falin' loike a baste, for I knew well 'twas only the mellowness av the beer in me. But it's given me a lesson it has. Oi'll be betther tempered after this." "Good idea," said Wheaton. At the end of the first week Wheaton took Pat out and weighed him, undressed--four pounds gained. "We must do better than that," commented Wheaton. "We'll barely pull through at this gait, and it will be harder work getting on flesh the last two weeks. Do you take your beer every hour?" "O'm beginning to spake Dutch," said Pat. "Well, keep on with it and eat--eat like a hobo! We'll make it! Don't exercise, don't even wink, if you can help it." Pat took his instructions literally and obeyed them. He stayed in his room and gorged. His eyes became a trifle heavy and his face flushed, but at the end of two weeks he weighed only one hundred and fifty-nine pounds. Somehow, the next week he didn't do so well, gaining only three pounds more. Dame Nature, in mistaken kindness, was trying to adjust him to his new diet. Wheaton was becoming excited--only one hundred and sixty-two pounds, and only a week to gain something over three more in! "We must hump ourselves!"