Fat came back to the table, and the Greasy Spoon again rang with laughter. How foolish that reformer was! He did no work himself and was a dyspeptic. He tried to force his diet upon us, and he made us as weak as he was. How many reformers there are who are trying to reshape the world to fit their own weakness. I never knew a theorist who wasn't a sick man. To-day we understand that we can't run a motor-car after the gasoline is played out. The burning of the oil in the engine gives the power. The burning of fats in the muscles gives the laborer his power. Sugar and starches are the next best things to fat, and that's why we could eat the thick slabs of sweet pie. We relished it well and have burned it all up in our labor in the mills. We came out with that healthy sparkle that dyspeptics never know. When we realized that the reformer didn't know what he was talking about, and that in his effort to help us he was hurting us, we saw he was our enemy, and we gave all of his ideas the “horse laugh.” His theory that the boarding-house keepers were in a conspiracy to rob the workers by feeding them pork instead of pineapples turned out to be much like all the “capitalist conspiracies” in Comrade Bannerman's pamphlets. I am glad I have lived in a world of facts, and that I went therefrom to the world of books. For I have found there is much falsehood taught in books. But life won't tell a fellow any lies. A man who knows only books may believe that by writing a new prescription he can cure the world of what ails it. A man who knows life knows that the world is not sick. Give it plenty of food and a chance to work and it will have perfect digestion. CHAPTER XXVII. THE PIE EATER'S PARADISE The Greasy Spoon was all right. It was a peaceful place. The landlady was Irish, and her motto was: “If there's any fighting to be done here I'll do it myself.” On the sideboard she kept a carving knife as big as a cavalry saber. Whenever two men started a row, she grabbed this carving knife and with a scream like a panther she lit into them. “Stop yer fightin' before I hack your hands off!” The men were in deadly fear of her because they knew she meant business. The sight of that swinging knife quelled every riot before it got started. We fellows were like children in that we only thought of one thing at a time. And when we saw the landlady's carving knife we forgot whatever else was on our minds. This woman was a real peacemaker. She not only wanted peace, she knew how to get it. Such things afford us lessons that are useful all our lives. This woman had learned by sad experience that healthy men will quarrel and thump each other; that these fights put men in the hospital, after breaking her dishes and splattering her tablecloths with blood. Hating bloodshed, she prevented it by being ever ready to shed blood herself. She stood for the moral law, but she stood armed and ready.