whatever you say, Colonel Saunders, his soul
still goes marching on--"

"I grant that, madam--that his soul still goes marching on--I _never_
contested that--but _where_ does it go marching on!"

Then the yearly riot of protests and angry disputation would wake.

And every spring, in anticipation of this melee, reporters from the
Kansas City papers were sent to cover the story of the proceedings of
the Old Settlers' Society.

* * * * *

Bob Fitzsimmons stopped off at our town, with his show. Though I
couldn't afford to attend the performance, I did race down to the
station, go up to him, and ask the privilege of a handshake.

His huge, freckled ham of a hand closed over mine in a friendly manner
... which disappeared up to the wrist. He exchanged a few, simple, shy
words with me from a mouth smashed to shapelessness by many blows. He
smiled gently, with kind eyes.

I was prouder of this greeting than of all my growing associations with
well-known literary figures. And I boasted to the boys of meeting "Bob"
... inventing what I said to "Bob" and what "Bob" said to me, _ad
infinitum_.

* * * * *

Though the great athlete shared my admiration with the great writer,
yet my staying awake at night writing, my but one meal a day,
usually,--except when I was invited out to a fraternity house or the
house of a professor--and my incessant drinking of coffee and coco-cola
to keep my ideas whipped up--all these things incapacitated me from
attaining any high place in athletic endeavour. I was fair at boxing and
could play a good scrub game of football. But my running, on which I
prided myself most--I entered for the two-mile, one field day, and won
only third place. I had gone back in form since Hebron days.

Dr. Gunning, head of our physical instruction, informed me that,
exercise as I might, I could never hope to be stronger or put on more
weight ... "you had too many hardships and privations in your growing
years ... and you are of too nervous a temperament."

* * * * *

But my love for Vanna had regularised me somewhat. I discarded my
sandals and bought Oxford ties. And I preserved a crease in my trousers
by laying them, folded carefully, under my mattress every night. And I
took to wearing shirts with white linen collars....

And I kept a picture of the girl I adored, secretly, among my
manuscripts--it was one I had beg