us from a most embarrassing
situation. It was "Butter Fingers" who hung by his digits from a
window sill on the fourth story of our dorm when she was burning down
... hung there ten minutes till the firemen got a ladder under him
after he'd been cut off from the stairs. He saved seven roommates by
that sure-grip of his, swinging them from a window where they were
trapped and sending them down the stairs ahead of him before the fire
put the stairs out of commission.

And who but "Butter Fingers" could have "human-fly-ed" it up the front
of the old stone chapel, clear up into the belfry? Of course he did it
on a dare but those wonder fingers of his just pulled him up, catching
hold of places that the ordinary person would tear their finger nails
on and cry thirteen bloody murders from the strain of hanging to
crevices by the finger tips.

That was "Butter Fingers"!

But, using the words of Al Jolson, "You ain't heard nothin' yet!" What
I've just got through telling you was just practice exercises for the
bird with the muscular mitts, the uncanny grip, the steam shovel hands
and the never-break-clutch.

Say, I hope you're not getting this "Butter Fingers" wrong. He was
long, lean, lanky, awkward, thin-nosed and all that ... but he wasn't
built like a foundry. His hands weren't extra large, either ...
excepting that the fingers were extra long. He only weighed a hundred
and fifty-one pounds which isn't much when you're thinking in terms of
football and so much for so tall. That's where "Butter Fingers" had
you fooled. You had to see him in action before you'd believe what
"Rus" Lindley could do.

Was he modest? He was so quiet and unassuming that you could hear his
watch ticking in his vest pocket! Was he athletic? Don't be
ridiculous! If he wasn't athletic anywhere but in his fingers he'd
have been athletic enough. As it was, he was the best end that ever
played on a football eleven representing Burden High!

What makes you think "Butter Fingers" was a freak? He wasn't born
strong-fingered. Naw. He had to develop it. What made him do it?
Well, I don't know as I could answer that exactly. I remember "Butter
Fingers" saying once he'd gotten a kick out of chinning himself ever
since he was a baby. Sure! You don't chin yourself with your chin ...
you chin yourself with your ... anyhow it's mostly done with your grip!
You get a hold of a bar or something and pull your body up rigid! All
right, then