So able was his artistry that Merton's nostrils would sometimes betray him--he could swear they caught rich aromas from that distant board.
Not only had the fare purveyed by his favourite pharmacy put a blight upon him equal to Broadway's blight, but even of this tasteless stuff he must be cautious in his buying.

A sandwich, not too meaty at the centre, coffee tasting strangely of other things sold in a pharmacy, a segment of pie fair--seeming on its surface, but lacking the punch, as he put it, of Metta Judson's pie, a standardized, factory-made, altogether formal and perfunctory pie--these were the meagre items of his accustomed luncheon and dinner.
He had abandoned breakfast, partly because it cost money and partly because a gentleman in eastern Ohio had recently celebrated his hundred and third birthday by reason, so he confided to the press, of having always breakfasted upon a glass of clear cold water.

Probably ham and eggs or corned--beef hash would have cut him off at ninety, and water from the tap in the Patterson kitchen was both clear and cold.

It was not so much that he cared to live beyond ninety or so, but he wished to survive until things began to pick up on the Holden lot, and if this did bring him many more years, well and good.

Further, if the woman in the casting office persisted, as she had for ten days, in saying "Nothing yet" to inquiring screen artists, he might be compelled to intensify the regime of the Ohio centenarian.