The glory of the custard pie, is in the depth or thickness of it. The distance should be great between the glossy surface wavering between orange, yellow and brown and the substratum,wafer-like in its thinness, of paste. The custard pie, then demands a pie pan of an uncommon depth and spaciousness, with a capacity not frittered away in broad and spreading edges but, rather, with boundaries of an upright character and quite unobtrusive, the necessary wall of crust being of no great moment, so that it be respectably short as all about a custard pie that is worthy of consideration relates only to the filling. Taking this view of the custard pie, which I believe is the popular one. I have been troubled about pie pans. We have none at this place but such as are shallow, almost flat, nothing that is a cross between pie plate and pudding pan, which is what the exigency demands. Thinking to get out of the dilemma easily enough I went over to the country store and explained the matter to the merchant, who would not even stop for me to finish before he went off nodding and smiling, saying he had just what I wanted, some pie plates that were deep and some that were deeper. There never was a man more mistaken in the use of-words. All he really had was some that were shallow and some others that were shallower, and I spent some time trying to prove it to him, but as he was German it seemed without much success. Then I had to come home, take a hammer and beat the broad, flat, edges of the pie plates we have into a comparative perpendicularity. They look bad but, "what can't be cured must be endured," - as the sailor said when he bade his sweetheart, good bye - "so farewell, Susan," etc.

The very last time I had a talk with Mrs. Tingee - we are opposite neighbor's and it is common for me to step 111 of a morning - just as I was as i thought well out of the house she stopped me on the steps with the usual, "Oh, tell me something, now, what can I have for dinner?', "Why; Mrs. Tingee,why don't you give your boarders some roast lamb? There is nothing better; and as for the price it is really no dearer now than mutton or the other meat you buy." But, wouldn't they eat - " Whatever she may have intended to say, she did not finish the sentence but stopped for a moment and then resumed:

"No; it is not much trouble about the meat part, but it is the something to come after. I ought to make them something. Day before yesterday I gave them pudding; yesterday we had nothing and it seems as though I ought to have something to-day, and it ought to be pie and, oh, I do dread to make pie, so!

I could plainly see a shiver ran all through the poor lady as she said this; probably she was thinking of lard and the outlay involved in its use.

"Why not make a custard pie," I said, "it does not require much pie paste.'

"I should want some eggs, shouldn"t I?" she asked dubiously.

"Yes; perhaps four.

"Couldn't you make it with two, if it was you?"

"How can I tell when I don't know how much or how many you are going to make."'

She gazed away off into space for a while. There was a mighty argument for and against pie going on in her mind. Then coming close and looking around to see that there were no listeners, she said in a low tone:

"I would not say it to anybody but you, but I have one boarder, a young man, that actually sometimes eats four pieces of pie?"

So that's what made this poor woman shiver. Not the bare reflection upon the expensiveness of lard, but the dread of this young man's calling heartlessly one, two, three, four times for pie; having her m his power; knowing she dared not say no, or, "it is all oat," while the other boarders were, yet to be served and would presently be, right before his eyes. I think if he had been in my place and realized what depths of doubt and fear this likelihood of his wanting four pieces had opened before her he would have sworn oil from ever going beyond the second order. However, there are extenuating circumstances to be mentioned in his favor.

We fellows who make our custard pies in all that swaggering, arrogant feeling of, boundless wealth that is born of having a plethroic store-room and whole barrels full of "stuff" to use out of would feel more like pitying than blaming the young man who would essay to move, around after a four-piece in-vest-ment of our pies, however good and wholesome, for, as we fill each one to the brim worn a pint of milk, four eggs and four ounces of sugar and the crust weighs at least four ounces more it is within an ounce or two of being two pounds weight for each custard pie, and though we cut it in the smallest pieces, that is in eight, the young man who would eat four would almost surely feel such discomfort that a pound of pie at once would bring its own punishment ; and I understood Mrs. Tingee to say that she cut her's in only six - so much the worse for the young man. However, in this case I tried to sympathise with Mrs. Tingee and offered her the poor comfort of saying that everything costs and it might as well be custard pie as something else; with which she cautiously agreed.

"But won't it take milk? she asked."

"Yes, of course."

"How much, do you think?,'

Now I verily believe she was thinking spoonfuls while I was thinking quarts, but not wishing to alarm her, I said:

"Oh, about a pint."

"But that's for tea," she replied.

"Maam?"

"That's for tea."

"What, the pie?"

"No, the milk."

"Oh! yes, I understand," and did begin to apprehend her meaning. That is just like a woman. I was thinking of a pint of milk - any pint of milk - from anywhere in the world so that we got it; she was thinking of the pint of milk, the one pint of milk in her cupboard set there to be used for the tea at the evening meal and, to her the only pint of milk in the universe.

"Well, then," I said, "you need not use that; you can make just as good a custard with water."

"Is that so?" she said, brightening up, "have you ever made custard with water?" I nodded an affirmative.

"What ever made you think of trying that?"

"It tried itself, as it were. You see when at the Cloverdale Hotel and cottages in the early part of the season we had more milk than we could possibly use we made custard pie with cream, and of course it was good. As the season advanced and the crowd increased we got down to skimmed milk and to milk mixed with water, and still the custard pies were apparently as good as before; so when it happened, as it will in every place sometimes, that there was no milk at all it was but an easy step further to make the custard pies with water alone and not care whether the cows come home or not."

"And they were every bit as good?"

"Yes, ma am - apparently."

"Did you ever hear of anybody using flour or starch or anything to save eggs?"

"Oh, yes; there is a rule for that. If you have need of four eggs you can mix up some flour and water to the consistency of thick cream and each cooking-spoonful of that is equal to one egg, for thickening purposes, but it will be white."

"But if I use three of that and one egg it will look yellow. Well, I must get to doing something, for the morning is half gone."

So then I was released, but only for a short time, for after dinner Mrs. Tingee made me cross the street again.

"I want you to come and try my custard pie," said she.

"No, thank you - I have had dinner."

"But you must - tell me whether I did right or wrong and what you think of it."

But the pie she set before me was none of mine. I disclaim having anything to do with it. My custard pies are big and fat - three big cups of custard in each one, and there is room to dive down deep in them; but this! Oh, Mrs. Tingee how could you! It is only the ghost, the shadow, the skeleton of a custard pie. I hope she will not ever ask me any more questions. Sometimes I feel like pitying her, but am always sure to be taken aback by some such exhibition of the preternatural sharpness she has acquired in the long battle of three-and-a-half-a-week. In this case - to borrow a simile from minister Schenck's book on poker - she has seen the hand I held and gone me one, ten, aye a hundred better. One of us two has been "sold" and it wasn't Mrs. T. Her custard pie is primped and crimped around the edges, but there is nothing of it. It consists of a sheet of bottom crust about as thin as paper, with a yellow layer of custard about as deep as a sheet of blotting paper upon it. Why, three cups of custard would cover "wilds immeasurably spread" of paste of such a depth as that. With a quart of such custard made with no milk but one egg she could fill pies enough to stock up a bakery. I am afraid of her. As for the young man who, sometimes eats four pieces I may envy him his vigorous ap-petite, but I utterly despise him for his want of taste. Let him go without a lecture. Mrs. Tingee is able to cope with him alone. In some way or other he gets his full punishment, never doubt it.