24 THE RING OF NATURE 



saves the trouble of cutting sandwiches is the cold 

 sausage. A quickly made sandwich that takes a 

 good eating certificate is made by clapping a hot 

 rasher between two slices of bread. When it has 

 frozen cold and set in its own aspic from the thin 

 juice it makes undoubtedly a capital lunch. 



I have found my best satisfaction in a lighter 

 preparation than any of these. Between slices of 

 cold, dry toast you put a spreading of the solid 

 honey that belongs to winter. It is somewhat apt 

 on a warmish day to run, or rather crawl out, and 

 make a little messiness on the paper, but there 

 are many virtues to make up for this one possible 

 inconvenience. If the bread is of the right kind 

 and well toasted, it supplements the pointed sweet- 

 ness of the honey in an uncommonly toothsome 

 way. It stops that craving sweetly, pleasantly, 

 and without a jolt, and it sustains the system 

 through a twenty or a forty mile walk as very few 

 other foods can. So honey and toast for me 

 whenever I can get them. 



I have said that the pangs of a hunger for a meal 

 only shortly overdue may not be comparable with 

 those of a week-old fast. Yet any one who has 

 had the curiosity to try has found the longer fast 

 a far different experience than they expected. 

 That imperative emptiness lasts till not more than 

 twenty-four hours from the latest meal, neither 

 does it gnaw all the time. It makes itself felt at 

 what were the old meal-times, and the greatest 

 effort of the starving man is to get over the first 



