"And so I layed out to nurse my appetite, and aggravate it by never givin' it quite all it wanted. When I was in the hills after a day's tramp I'd let it have its fling on such delicacies as I could turn out of the fryin'-pan myself, but when I got in again I'd begin to act bossy with it. It's _wantin'_ reasonably that keeps folks alive, I reckon. The mis-a-blest folks I've ever saw was them that had killed all their wants by overfeedin' 'em.
"Then again, son, in this world of human failin's there ain't anything ever _can_ be as pure and blameless and satisfyin' as the stuff in a bake-shop window looks like it is. Don't ever furget that. It's jest too good to be true. And in the next place--pastry's good in its way, but the best you can ever get is what's made fur you at home--I'm talkin' about a lot of things now that you don't probably know any too much about. Sometimes the boys out in the hills spends their time dreamin' fur other things besides pies and cakes, but that system of mine holds good all through the deal--you can play it from soda to hock and not lose out. And that's why I'm outlastin' a lot of the boys and still gettin' my fun out of the game.
"It's a good system fur you, son, while you're learnin' to use your head. Your pa played it at first, then he cut loose. And you need it worse'n ever he did, if I got you sized up right. He touched me on one side, and touched you on the other. But you can last longer if you jest keep the system in mind a little. Remember what I say about the window stuff."
Percival had listened to the old man's story with proper amusement, and to the didactics with that feeling inevitable to youth which says secretly, as it affects to listen to one whom it does not wish to wound, "Yes, yes, I know, but you were living in another day, long ago, and you are not _me!_"
He went over to the desk and began to scribble a name on the pad of paper.
"If a man really loves one woman he'll behave all right," he observed to Uncle Peter.
"Oh, I ain't preachin' like some do. Havin' a good time is all right; it's the only thing, I reckon, sometimes, that justifies the misery of livin'. But cuttin' loose is bad jedgment. A man wakes up to find that his natural promptin's has cold-decked him. If I smoked the best see-gars now all the time, purty soon I'd get so't I wouldn't appreciate 'em. That's why I always keep some of these out-door free-burners on hand. One of them now and then makes the others taste better."