es-of-roses hair. There was a lot of him, and it was well
placed. He had sort of a soothing, easy way of talking, too, like a
church organ with the soft pedal on.

Me and Jarvis got acquainted right away. He said he didn't care much
about the physical-culture game--didn't exactly need it, and he'd been
through all that before, anyway--but, mother and sister wanted him to
take it up again, and Pinckney'd told what a crackerjack I was; so he
thought he might as well go in for it. He said he'd had a little hole
fixed up where one could do that sort of thing, y'know, and he hoped I
wouldn't find it such a beastly bore, after all.

Oh, he was a gent, Mr. Jarvis. But what got me was the careless way he
juggled the reins over those two bob-tailed nags that was doin' a
ragtime runaway, and him usin' only three fingers, and touchin' 'em up
with the whip. It was his lucky day, though, and we got there without an
ambulance.

It was somethin' of a place to get to, yes--about a hundred and 'steen
rooms and bath, I should say, with a back yard that must have slopped
over into Connecticut some. That's what you get by havin' a grandpop who
put his thumb-print on every dollar that came his way.

I guess Jarvis was used to livin' in a place like that, though. He
didn't stop to tell what anything cost, or show off any of the
bric-a-brac. He just led the way through seven or eight parlors and
palm-rooms, until we fetched up in the hole he'd fixed up to exercise
in. It was about three times as big as the Studio here, and if there was
anything missing from the outfit I couldn't have told what it
was--flyin'-rings, bars, rowin'-machine, punchin'-bags, dumb-bells--say!
with a secretary and a few wall mottos, there was the makin's of a
Y. M. C. A. branch right on the ground. Then there was dressin'-rooms,
a shower bath, and a tiled plunge tank like they have in these Turkish
places.

"Lucky you don't go in strong for exercise," says I. "If you did, I
s'pose you'd fix up Madison Square Garden?"

"That architect was an ass," says Jarvis; "but mother told him to go
ahead. Fancy he thought I was a Sandow, you know."

Well, we gets into our gym. clothes, picks out a set of kid pillows, and
had just stepped out on the rubber for a little warmin' up, when in
sails a fluff delegation. There was a fat old one, that looked as though
she might be mother; a slim baby-eyed one, that any piker would have
played for sister; and another, that I couldn'