I might perhaps arrive at the
solution of the problem that was troubling me--that is to say, why I,
with every ostensible reason in the world for being happy, was not!
This, then, was to be my task.

* * * * *

I have already indicated that I am a sound, moderately healthy, vigorous
man, with a slight tendency to run to fat. I am five feet ten inches
tall, weigh a hundred and sixty-two pounds, have gray eyes, a rather
aquiline nose, and a close-clipped dark-brown mustache, with enough gray
hairs in it to give it dignity. My movements are quick; I walk with a
spring. I usually sleep, except when worried over business. I do not
wear glasses and I have no organic trouble of which I am aware. The New
York Life Insurance Company has just reinsured me after a thorough
physical examination. My appetite for food is not particularly good, and
my other appetites, in spite of my vigor, are by no means keen. Eating
is about the most active pleasure that I can experience; but in order to
enjoy my dinner I have to drink a cocktail, and my doctor says that is
very bad for my health.

My personal habits are careful, regular and somewhat luxurious. I bathe
always once and generally twice a day. Incidentally I am accustomed to
scatter a spoonful of scented powder in the water for the sake of the
odor. I like hot baths and spend a good deal of time in the Turkish bath
at my club. After steaming myself for half an hour and taking a cold
plunge, an alcohol rub and a cocktail, I feel younger than ever; but
the sight of my fellow men in the bath revolts me. Almost without
exception they have flabby, pendulous stomachs out of all proportion to
the rest of their bodies. Most of them are bald and their feet are
excessively ugly, so that, as they lie stretched out on glass slabs to
be rubbed down with salt and scrubbed, they appear to be deformed. I
speak now of the men of my age. Sometimes a boy comes in that looks like
a Greek god; but generally the boys are as weird-looking as the men. I
am rambling, however. Anyhow I am less repulsive than most of them. Yet,
unless the human race has steadily deteriorated, I am surprised that the
Creator was not discouraged after his first attempt.

I clothe my body in the choicest apparel that my purse can buy, but am
careful to avoid the expressions of fancy against which Polonius warns
us. My coats and trousers are made in London, and so are my
underclothes, which are wov