t. How do
you expect to get anywhere if you can't keep two silly little balls like
these going between us?" (There had probably been six or eight.) "Here I
am sixty and you're forty, and you can't even keep up with me. And you
pretend to give the general public advice on life! Well, go on; God pity
the public, is all I say," and he dismissed him, calling out another
name.

Now came a fat, bald soul, with dewlaps and a protruding stomach, who
later I learned was a manufacturer of clothing--six hundred employees
under him--down in health and nerves, really all "shot to pieces"
physically. Plainly nervous at the sound of his name, he puffed quickly
into position, grabbing wildly after the purposely eccentric throws
which his host made and which kept him running to left and right in an
all but panicky mood.

"Move! Move!" insisted our host as before, and, if anything, more
irritably. "Say, you work like a crab! What a motion! If you had more
head and less guts you could do this better. A fine specimen you are!
This is what comes of riding about in taxis and eating midnight suppers
instead of exercising. Wake up! Wake up! A belt would have kept your
stomach in long ago. A little less food and less sleep, and you wouldn't
have any fat cheeks. Even your hair might stay on! Wake up! Wake up!
What do you want to do--die?" and as he talked he pitched the balls so
quickly that his victim looked at times as though he were about to weep.
His physical deficiencies were all too plain in every way. He was
generally obese and looked as though he might drop, his face a flaming
red, his hands trembling and missing, when a "Well, go on," sounded and
a third victim was called. This time it was a well-known actor who
responded, a star, rather spry and well set up, but still nervous, for
he realized quite well what was before him. He had been here for weeks
and was in pretty fair trim, but still he was plainly on edge. He ran
and began receiving and tossing as swiftly as he could, but as with the
others so it was his turn now to be given such a grilling and
tongue-lashing as falls to few of us in this world, let alone among the
successful in the realm of the footlights. "Say, you're not an
actor--you're a woman! You're a stewed onion! Move! Move! Come on! Come
on! Look at those motions now, will you? Look at that one arm up! Where
do you suppose the ball is? On the ceiling? It's not a lamp! Come on!
Come on! It's a wonder when you're killed