Genre:

Extract, Short Fiction, Drollery

Publications extracted:

Inspector

Subjects:

Nutrition, Disease, Engineering

    The narrator has always had a huge appetite, but is slight in build: 'At fourteen, I was long, lean, and cadaverous, and to those who had never seen me dine, of a pulmonary appearance; those who had, candidly acknowledged, that if there was a consumption visible, it was in the dinner, and not in the diner' (401). As a young man in love he strives at a dinner not to reveal his appetite to 'the sentimental Amelia'. Before the evening is over he finds that his 'abstinence had most remarkably Macadamized the road to her affections' (402). When he is found out, her relatives think he has 'the appetite of an elephant' (403).