"Try it for only a month," said Klinker the Tempter.
"I'll help you--glad to do it--I need the drill myself. Gimme an hour a
day for just a month, and I'll bet you the drinks you wouldn't quit
after that for a hundred dollars."
Queed turned away from Klinker's honest eyes, and wrestled the bitter
thing out. _Thirty Hours stolen from His Book!..._ Yesterday, even an
hour ago, he would not have considered such an outrage for a moment. But
now, driving him irresistibly toward the terrible idea, working upon him
far more powerfully than his knowledge of headache, even than Klinker's
promise of a net gain in his working ability, was this new irrationally
disturbing knowledge that he was a physical incompetent.... If he had
begun systematic exercise ten years ago, probably he could thrash Mr.
Pat to-day.
Yet an hour a day is not pried out of a sacred schedule of work without
pains and anguish, and it was with a grim face that the Doc turned back
to William Klinker.
"Very well, Mr. Klinker, I will agree to make the experiment,
tentatively--an hour a day for thirty days only."
"Right for you, Doc! You'll never be sorry--take it from me."
Klinker was a brisk, efficient young man. The old gang that had fitted
out the gymnasium had drifted away, and the thought of going once more
into regular training, with a pupil all his own, was breath to his
nostrils. He assumed charge of the ceded hour with skilled sureness.
Rain or shine, the Doctor was to take half an hour's hard walking in the
air every day, over and above the walk to the office. Every afternoon at
six--at which hour the managerial duties at Stark's terminated--he was
to report in the gym for half an hour's vigorous work on the apparatus.
This iron-clad regime was to go into effect on the morrow.
"I'll look at you stripped," said Klinker, eyeing his new pupil
thoughtfully, "and see first what you need. Then I'll lay out a reg'lar
course for you--exercises for all parts of the body. Got any trunks?"
Queed looked surprised. "I have one small one--a steamer trunk, as it is
called."
Klinker explained what he meant, and the Doctor feared that his wardrobe
contained no such article.
"Ne'mmind. I can fit you up with a pair. Left Hand Tom's they used to
be, him that died of the scarlet fever Thanksgiving. And say, Doc!"
"Well?"
"Here's the first thing I'll teach you. Never mister your
sparring-partner."
The Doc thought this out, laboriously, and presently said: "Very well,
William."
"Call me Buck, the same as all the boys."
Klinker came toward him holding out an object made of red velveteen
about the size of a pocket handkerchief.
"Put these where you can find them to-morrow. You can have 'em. Left
Hand Tom's gone where he don't need 'em any more."
"What are they? What does one do with them?"
"They're your trunks. You wear 'em."
"Where? On--what portion, I mean?"
"They're like little pants," said Klinker.
The two men walked home together over the frozen streets. Queed was
taciturn and depressed. He was annoyed by Klinker's presence and
irritated by his conversation; he wanted nothing in the world so much as
to be let alone. But honest Buck Klinker remained unresponsive to his
mood. All the way to Mrs. Paynter's he told his new pupil grisly stories
of men he had known who had thought that they could work all day and all
night, and never take any exercise. Buck kindly offered to show the Doc
their graves.