And yet, more and more as the days went by, this old-time film would unreel itself before the eager eyes of Merton Gill.

Often now it thrilled him as might have an installment of The Hazards of Hortense, for the food of his favourite pharmacy was beginning to pall and Metta Judson, though giving her shallow mind to base village gossip, was a good cook.

She became the adored heroine of an apparently endless serial to be entitled The Hazards of Clifford Armytage, in which the hero had tragically little to do but sit upon a bench and wait while tempting repasts were served.
Sometimes on the little bench around the eucalyptus tree he would run an entire five-thousand-foot program feature, beginning with the Sunday midday dinner of roast chicken, and abounding in tense dramatic moments such as corned-beef and cabbage on Tuesday night, and corned-beef hash on Wednesday morning.

He would pause to take superb closeups of these, the corned beef on its spreading platter hemmed about with boiled potatoes and turnips and cabbage, and the corned beef hash with its richly browned surface.

The thrilling climax would be the roast of beef on Saturday night, with close-ups taken in the very eye of the camera, of the mashed potatoes and the apple pie drenched with cream.