y was opened to me.... I read
and read....

"Come, Gregory, it's time to close"--a voice at my elbow. It was
Breasted's assistant, a little, curious man who reminded me of my
sky-pilot at Sydney. He, also, wore a black, long-tailed coat. He was
known as "the perfessor."

"You've been standing here as quiet as a crane for three hours."

"How much do you want for this book?"

"A quarter ... for you!" He always affected to make me special
reductions, as an old customer....

A quarter was all I had. I paid for my Keats, and walked home. Walked? I
went with wings on each heel. I was as genuinely converted to a new life
as a sinner is converted to the Christian religion.

I lit the light in my room. All night I read and re-read, not a whit
sleepy or tired.

I went for a week in a mad dream, my face shining and glowing with inner
ecstasy and happiness.

* * * * *

There did not seem to be time enough in the twenty-four hours of each
day for reading and studying and writing. And a new thing came to me: a
shame for my shadow thinness and a desire to build myself into a better
physical man.

At that time _McFadden's Physical Culture Magazine_ was becoming widely
read. I came across a copy of it. I found in it a guide to what I was in
search for. Faithfully I took up physical culture. Fanatically I kept
all the windows open, wore as little clothing as possible ... adopted a
certain walk on tiptoe, like a person walking on egg-shells, to develop
the calves of my legs from their thinness to a more proportionate shape.
And, as I walked, I filled and emptied my lungs like a bellows. I kept a
small statue of Apollo Belvedere on top of my bookcase. I had a print of
the Flying Mercury on the wall, at the foot of my bed. Each morning, on
waking, I filled my mind full of these perfect specimens of manhood,
considering that by so doing I would gradually pilot my body to physical
perfection.... I know that many things I say about myself will appeal to
the "wit" as humorous. I can't help it if I am laughed at ... everybody
would be, if they told the truth about themselves, like this.

* * * * *

I joined the Y.M.C.A. for the physical side, not for the spiritual. I
found a spirit that I did not like there, a sort of mental deadness and
ineffectually. But one thing the Y.M.C.A. did for me: I found on the
bulletin board one day an announcement of the summer term of Mt.