Though I
couldn't afford to attend the performance, I did race down to the
station, go up to him, and ask the privilege of a handshake.
His huge, freckled ham of a hand closed over mine in a friendly manner
... which disappeared up to the wrist. He exchanged a few, simple, shy
words with me from a mouth smashed to shapelessness by many blows. He
smiled gently, with kind eyes.
I was prouder of this greeting than of all my growing associations with
well-known literary figures. And I boasted to the boys of meeting "Bob"
... inventing what I said to "Bob" and what "Bob" said to me, _ad
infinitum_.
* * * * *
Though the great athlete shared my admiration with the great writer,
yet my staying awake at night writing, my but one meal a day,
usually,--except when I was invited out to a fraternity house or the
house of a professor--and my incessant drinking of coffee and coco-cola
to keep my ideas whipped up--all these things incapacitated me from
attaining any high place in athletic endeavour. I was fair at boxing and
could play a good scrub game of football. But my running, on which I
prided myself most--I entered for the two-mile, one field day, and won
only third place. I had gone back in form since Hebron days.
Dr. Gunning, head of our physical instruction, informed me that,
exercise as I might, I could never hope to be stronger or put on more
weight .
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