nd be
weighed!_'

'_Go and be d----d!_' I yelled, furious at being thus victimized;
but my angry and profane rejoinder was lost in the shout of
laughter that went up from the assembled athletes.

Natural abhorrence of jokes, practical or otherwise, is a trait
among my people; it runs in the family, like wooden legs. I
immediately sought the boss gymnaster and related the manner in
which I had been introduced to his elevating establishment. I told
him I had come there neither to be made a horse of by one nor an
ass of by another. He pledged his word that the like should not
occur again, and I was appeased.

I first attempted the parallel bars, but they were never intended
for men of my breadth. My hands giving way, I became so firmly
wedged between the bars that it was necessary to cut one of them
away in order to release me. A wag pronounced it a feat without a
parallel.

The horizontal bar next claimed my attention. I had seen others
hang with their heads down, suspended by their legs alone, and the
trick appeared quite easy of execution. I succeeded in suspending
myself in the manner indicated, but--_revocare gradum_--when I
attempted to regain the bar with my hands, it was no go. I was in
a perspiration of alarm at once; my legs grew weak; my head swam
from the rush of blood; twist and squirm as I would, I couldn't
reach the bar with the tip end of a finger even. My head was four
or five feet from the ground, so that a fall was likely to break
my neck, and when my frantic efforts to clutch the bar with my
hands failed, I shrieked in very desperation. Men came running to
my aid. They raked the tan bark, with which the ground was strewn,
in a pile beneath me, to break my fall as much as possible, and,
relaxing my hold of the bar, I came down in a heap, rolled up like
a gigantic caterpillar, and dived head and shoulders into the tan
bark, where I was nearly smothered before I could be extracted. It
was a terrible fright, but I escaped with a few bruises.

My brief career as a gymnast terminated with the 'ladder act.' I
felt unequal to the task of drawing myself up the ladder (which
was slightly inclined from the perpendicular), as I had seen
others do, but once at the top I believed I could lower myself
down. A purchase was rigged in the roof, by which I was hoiste