by the way--and never say a word. But out here in the country, with
plenty of fresh air and a night's rest and a good breakfast, he can't
even do four miles in fifty minutes! Think of it! And he probably
thinks of himself as a man--boasts before his friends, or his wife,
anyhow. Lord!"

A day or two later there arrived here a certain major of the United
States Army, a large, broad-chested, rather pompous person of about
forty-eight or -nine, who from taking his ease in one sinecure and
another had finally reached the place where he was unable to endure
certain tests (or he thought so) which were about to be made with a view
to retiring certain officers grown fat in the service. As he explained
to Culhane, and the latter was always open and ribald afterward in his
comments on those who offered explanations of any kind, his plan was to
take the course here in order to be able to make the difficult tests
later.

Culhane resented this, I think. He resented people using him or his
methods to get anywhere, do anything more in life than he could do, and
yet he received them. He felt, and I think in the main that he was
right, that they looked down on him because of his lowly birth and
purely material and mechanical career, and yet having attained some
distinction by it he could not forego this work which raised him, in a
way, to a position of dominance over these people. Now the sight of
presumably so efficient a person in need of aid or exercise, to be built
up, was all that was required to spur him on to the most waspish or
wolfish attitude imaginable. In part at least he argued, I think (for in
the last analysis he was really too wise and experienced to take any
such petty view, although there is a subconscious "past-lack" motivating
impulse in all our views), that here he was, an ex-policeman,
ex-wrestler, ex-prize fighter, ex-private, ex-waiter, beef-carrier,
bouncer, trainer; and here was this grand major, trained at West Point,
who actually didn't know any more about life or how to take care of his
body than to be compelled to come here, broken down at forty-eight,
whereas he, because of his stamina and Spartan energy, had been able to
survive in perfect condition until sixty and was now in a position to
rebuild all these men and wastrels and to control this great
institution. And to a certain extent he was right, although he seemed to
forget or not to know that he was not the creator of his own great
strength, by a