I am now relating the experiences of a student of hygienic epicureanism and am not considering money economy alone. Were mental or even physical improvement in efficiency to be purchased at high prices, and lack of efficiency could be had for nothing, the high-priced article would be well worth its cost, no matter what it might be, for the reason that total lack of efficiency is equivalent to death and any proportionate lack is the next thing to death. Hence it is not a money economic reform that is being advocated, and this must be borne in mind. When I am in New York I very often take a room at the Waldorf-Astoria because it has become, by common consent, the suburban and country business and social clearing house of the whole United States; and hence, coming from Europe periodically as I do, and always anxious to meet old friends from San Francisco, New Orleans, Boston, Washington, the great cities of the Middle West, or elsewhere, it is more easily accomplished by camping at the Waldorf than in any other way. I cannot be a profitable guest of this or any hotel kept on the European plan, but I try to make up for this deficiency in other ways. Just across Sixth Avenue from the Waldorf, on Thirty-Fourth Street, is one of the most pretentious of the so-called "dairy lunches." In these places good, appetising, wholesome food is served quickly and in _decently small portions_. For this very reason alone, I _prefer_ the crowd and the noise of the dairy lunch to the quiet and the luxury of the Waldorf café or dining-room. One would not object to paying a larger price at the more quiet place of service, but prodigality seems to be the present great American sin. Were it a mere waste of money or even of the food, it would not be worthy of great discussion; for when the fool and his money are parted the laugh is on him with no grain of sympathy, and there already being a great surplus of food in the land, there is no fear of famine. But with this prodigality prevalent, so that to have a decent variety one must have put before him enough for a family, the temptation to grossly overeat is great and the abuse is criminal. It is the hope of the author that some enterprising Boldt will inaugurate an epicurean service and charge well enough for it to pay for the trouble, or better yet, in proportion to the quantity wanted. In this regard the poor do not suffer directly, but the example of the rich is the perverter of the poor in many ways, and surely in this item of dietetic abuse.