Now, he borrows other people's newspapers, eats the provisions of others, and sits on the counter of the grocery till the proprietor calls him a counter irritant.
There can be nothing more un-American than this flabby polyp, this one-horse tadpole that never becomes a frog. The average American would rather burst up in business six times in four years, and settle for nine cents on the dollar, than to lead such a life. He would rather be an active bankrupt than a weak and bilious barnacle on the clam-shell of home.
The true American would rather work himself into luxury or the lunatic asylum than to hang like a great wart upon the face of nature. This young man is not in accordance with the Yankee schedule, and yet I do not want to say that he belongs to any other nation. Foreign powers may have been wrong; trans-Atlantic nations may have erred, and the system of European government may have been erroneous, but I would not come out and charge them with this horrible responsibility. They never harmed me, and I will not tarnish their fair fame with this grave indictment.
He will breathe a certain amount of atmosphere, and absorb a given amount of feed for a few years, and then the full-grown biped will leave the home nest at last. The undertaker will come and get him and take what there is left of him out to the cemetery. That will be all. There can be no deep abiding sorrow for him here; public buildings will not be draped in mourning, and you can get your mail at the usual hour when he dies. The band will not play a sadder strain because the fag-end of a human failure has tapered down to death, and the soft and shapeless features are still. You will have no trouble getting a draft cashed on that day, and the giddy throng will join the picnic as they had made arrangements to do.
THE CHAMPION MEAN MAN
FRATERNAL SPARRING
I needed a little healthful exercise and was looking for something that would be full of vigorous enthusiasm, and at the same time promote the healthful flow of blood to the muscles. This was rather difficult. I tried most everything, but failed. Being a sociable being (joke) I wanted other people to help me exercise, or go along with me when I exercised. Some men can go away to a desert isle and have fun with dumb-bells and a horizontal bar, but to me it would seem dull and commonplace after a while, and I would yearn for more humanity.
Two of us finally concluded to play billiards; but we were only amateurs and the owner intimated that he would want the table for Fourth of July, so we broke off in the middle of the first game and I paid for it.
Then a younger brother said he had a set of boxing-gloves in his room, and although I was the taller and had longer arms, he would hold up as long its he could., and I might hammer him until I gained strength and finally got well.
I accepted this offer because I had often regretted that I had not made myself familiar with this art, and also because I knew it would create a thrill of interest and
fire me with ambition, and that's what a hollow-eyed invalid needs to put him on the road to recovery.
The boxing-glove is a large fat mitten, with an abnormal thumb and a string at the wrist by which you tie it on, so that when you feed it to your adversary he cannot swallow it and choke himself. I had never seen any boxing-gloves before, but my brother said they were soft and wouldn't hurt anybody. So we took off some of our raiment and put them on. Then we shook hands. I can remember distinctly yet that we shook hands. That was to show that we were friendly and would not slay each other.
My brother is a great deal younger than I am and so I warned him not to get excited and come for me with anything that would look like wild and ungovernable fury, because I might, in the heat of debate, pile his jaw up on his forehead and fill his ear full of sore thumb. He said that was all right and he would try to be cool and collected.
Then we put our right toes together and I told him to be on his guard. At that moment I dealt him a terrific blow aimed at his nose, but through a clerical error of mine it went over his shoulder and spent itself in the wall of the room, shattering a small holly-wood bracket, for which I paid him $3.75 afterward. I did not wish to buy the bracket because I had two at home, but he was arbitrary about it and I bought it.
We then took another athletic posture, and in two seconds the air was full of poulticed thumb and buckskin mitten. I soon detected a chance to put one in where my brother could smell of it, but I never knew just where it struck, for at that moment I ran up against something with the pit of my stomach that made me throw up the sponge along with some other groceries, the names of which I cannot now recall.
My brother then proposed that we take off the gloves, but I thought I had not sufficiently punished him, and that another round would complete the conquest, which was then almost within my grasp. I took a bismuth powder and squared myself, but in warding off a left-hander, I forgot about my adversary's right and ran my nose into the middle of his boxing-glove. Fearing that I had injured him, I retreated rapidly on my elbows and shoulder-blades to the corner of the room, thus giving him ample time to recover. By this means my younger brother's features were saved, and are to-day as symmetrical as my own.