There were fifteen passengers on board. The table-fare was of the regulation pattern of the day: At 7 in the morning, a cup of bad coffee in bed; at 9, breakfast: bad coffee, with condensed milk; soggy rolls, crackers, salt fish; at 1 P.M., luncheon: cold tongue, cold ham, cold corned beef, soggy cold rolls, crackers; 5 P.M., dinner: thick pea soup, salt fish, hot corned beef and sour kraut, boiled pork and beans, pudding; 9 till 11 P.M., supper: tea, with condensed milk, cold tongue, cold ham, pickles, sea-biscuit, pickled oysters, pickled pigs' feet, grilled bones, golden buck.
At the end of the first week eating had ceased, nibbling had taken its place. The passengers came to the table, but it was partly to put in the time, and partly because the wisdom of the ages commanded them to be regular in their meals. They were tired of the coarse and monotonous fare, and took no interest in it, had no appetite for it. All day and every day they roamed the ship half hungry, plagued by their gnawing stomachs, moody, untalkative, miserable. Among them were three confirmed dyspeptics. These became shadows in the course of three weeks. There was also a bed-ridden invalid; he lived on boiled rice; he could not look at the regular dishes.
Now came shipwrecks and life in open boats, with the usual paucity of food. Provisions ran lower and lower. The appetites improved, then.
When nothing was left but raw ham and the ration of that was down to two ounces a day per person, the appetites were perfect. At the end of fifteen days the dyspeptics, the invalid, and the most delicate ladies in the party were chewing sailor-boots in ecstasy, and only complaining because the supply of them was limited. Yet these were the same people who couldn't endure the ship's tedious corned beef and sour kraut and other crudities. They were rescued by an English vessel. Within ten days the whole fifteen were in as good condition as they had been when the shipwreck occurred.
'They had suffered no damage by their adventure,' said the professor.
'Do you note that?'
'Yes.'
'Do you note it well?'
'Yes--I think I do.'
'But you don't. You hesitate. You don't rise to the importance of it.
I will say it again--with emphasis--not one of them suffered any damage.'
'Now I begin to see. Yes, it was indeed remarkable.'
'Nothing of the kind. It was perfectly natural. There was no reason why they should suffer damage. They were undergoing Nature's Appetite-Cure, the best and wisest in the world.'
'Is that where you got your idea?'
'That is where I got it.'
'It taught those people a valuable lesson.'
'What makes you think that?'
'Why shouldn't I? You seem to think it taught you one.'
'That is nothing to the point. I am not a fool.'
'I see. Were they fools?'
'They were human beings.'
'Is it the same thing?'
'Why do you ask? You know it yourself. As regards his health--and the rest of the things--the average man is what his environment and his superstitions have made him; and their function is to make him an ass.
He can't add up three or four new circumstances together and perceive what they mean; it is beyond him. He is not capable of observing for himself; he has to get everything at second-hand. If what are miscalled the lower animals were as silly as man is, they would all perish from the earth in a year.'
'Those passengers learned no lesson, then?'
'Not a sign of it. They went to their regular meals in the English ship, and pretty soon they were nibbling again--nibbling, appetiteless, disgusted with the food, moody, miserable, half hungry, their outraged stomachs cursing and swearing and whining and supplicating all day long.
And in vain, for they were the stomachs of fools.'
'Then, as I understand it, your scheme is--'
'Quite simple. Don't eat until you are hungry. If the food fails to taste good, fails to satisfy you, rejoice you, comfort you, don't eat again until you are very hungry. Then it will rejoice you--and do you good, too.'
'And I am to observe no regularity, as to hours?'
'When you are conquering a bad appetite--no. After it is conquered, regularity is no harm, so long as the appetite remains good. As soon as the appetite wavers, apply the corrective again--which is starvation, long or short according to the needs of the case.'
'The best diet, I suppose--I mean the wholesomest--'
'All diets are wholesome. Some are wholesomer than others, but all the ordinary diets are wholesome enough for the people who use them. Whether the food be fine or coarse it will taste good and it will nourish if a watch be kept upon the appetite and a little starvation introduced every time it weakens. Nansen was used to fine fare, but when his meals were restricted to bear-meat months at a time he suffered no damage and no discomfort, because his appetite was kept at par through the difficulty of getting his bear-meat regularly.'
'But doctors arrange carefully considered and delicate diets for invalids.'
'They can't help it. The invalid is full of inherited superstitions and won't starve himself. He believes it would certainly kill him.'
'It would weaken him, wouldn't it?'