that the writer was referring to young women; for I had been told that in New Zealand it is "his tart" and "her Johnny."
Tarts are very well in their place, but when an American pie-eater finds them usurping the pie, as in New Zealand, he feels like lodging a protest. In the Dominion they have American-built railway cars and locomotives, American plows and binders, American this and American that, but—they have no American pie. True, they have the word, but beyond its application to meat-pies it is a misnomer. In pastry-cooks' shops I sometimes saw what looked like a pie, but it was advertised as a tart.
At hotels they gave me what the menu said was pie, but no self-respecting American pie would recognize it as such. Aside from the meat variety, it is hard to classify so-called pie in New Zealand. There are so many species. One very common sort sprawls all over its plate. Undeniably it is a half-caste, but whether it is a half-caste pie or a half-caste pudding only an expert classifier could tell. This alleged pie half protrudes from its crusty shell. Another sort often comes entirely out of its shell, while there are others that have no shell at all; but as a rule these latter are sheltered at one side by a flaky square or rectangle.
Many New Zealand pies are served in half-developed soup-dishes, or in dishes that are a cross between a soup-plate and a large saucer. A Dunedin pie, served me in one of these hybrid dishes, was six parts apple and one
