Cinder Path Tales

A VIRGINIA JUMPER 137 looked up from my writing, as I live, I had answered three letters, and the clock had ticked off a full five minutes. (Two is usu­ ally enough to transform a shackled slave of Fashion to the freedomof a state ofnature.) I laid my pen aside, and taking tape in hand began to look him over. I confess I could hardly restrain an exclamation of surprise. His languid ways and slow movements had not prepared me for any such development as he showed. The conventional costume of the nineteenth century is a wonderful dis­ guise, designed by some man-milliner to hide the imperfections ofa degenerate race. The trained athlete andthe flabby dude look much alike in loose trousers and padded coats. Now, Dick was neither athlete nor dude, though if I ever saw a man cut out for the former, he wasthe one. His skinwas dark, but clear and velvety. He stood easily, with every muscle relaxed, and was as symmetrical as a demi-god. There was nothing out of proportion, no fat, no unused muscle, andno over-development. Indeed, I surmised, what afterward proved true, that he was the best specimen of an embryo athlete that it had ever been my good fortune to see. I took him to the standardand found his height five feet ten and one-half inches. He