ly painful.

Even as I meditated, however, I was advised, by many who saw that I was
a stranger, to choose a partner, any partner, for medicine ball
practice, for it might save me being taken or called by _him_. I
hastened so to do. Even as we were assembling or beginning to practice,
keeping two or three light medicine balls going between each pair, our
host entered--that iron man, that mount of brawn. In his cowled
dressing-gown he looked more like some great monk or fighting abbot of
the medieval years than a trainer. He walked to the center, hung up his
cowl and revealed himself lithe and lion-like and costumed like
ourselves. But how much more attractive as he strode about, his legs
lean and sturdy, his chest full, his arms powerful and graceful! At once
he seized a large leather-covered medicine ball, as had all the others,
and calling a name to which responded a lean whiskerando with a
semi-bald pate, thin legs and arms, and very much caricatured, I
presume, by the wearing of trunks and sweater. Taking his place opposite
the host, he was immediately made the recipient of a volley of balls and
brow-beating epithets.

"Hurry up now! Faster! Ah, come on! Put the ball back to me! Put the
ball back! Do you want to keep it all day? Great God! What are you
standing there for? What are you standing there for? What do you think
you're doing--drinking tea? Come on! I haven't all morning for you
alone. Move! Move, you ham! You call yourself an editor! Why, you
couldn't edit a handbill! You can't even throw a ball straight! Throw it
straight! Throw it straight! For Christ's sake where do you think I
am--out in the office? Throw it straight! Hell!" and all the time one
and another ball, grabbed from anywhere, for the floor was always
littered with them, would be thrown in the victim's direction, and
before he could well appreciate what was happening to him he was being
struck, once in the neck and again on the chest by the rapidly delivered
six ounce air-filled balls, two of which at least he and the host were
supposed to keep in constant motion between them. Later, a ball striking
him in the stomach, he emitted a weak "Ooph!" and laying his hands over
the affected part ceased all effort. At this the master of the situation
only smirked on him leoninely and holding up a ball as if to throw it
continued, "What's the matter with you now? Come on! What do you want to
stop for? What do you want to stand there for? You're not hur