When he
throws his arms back he hits the gas jet. Harrington's young son, who
insists on being present during the ordeal, believes that the entire
performance is intended for his amusement, and laughs immoderately. I
cannot blame him. Morning exercise is incompatible with the maintenance
of parental dignity. Were I a child again I could neither love nor
respect a father who placed two chairs at a considerable distance from
each other and mounted them horizontally like the human bridge in a
melodrama.
I admit, of course, that home exercises have the merit of being cheap.
No special apparatus is required. The ordinary household furniture and
such heirlooms as are readily available will usually suffice. An onyx
clock will do instead of chest weights. Any two volumes of the
Encyclopaedia Britannica will take the place of dumb-bells or Indian
clubs. Many a time I have stood still and held a bronze lamp in my
outstretched right hand for a minute and then held it in my left hand
for half a minute. I know of one man who skipped the rope one hundred
times every morning. Within four months he had lost three and a half
pounds, and driven the family in the flat below into nervous
prostration.
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