friend among dances, and also of the old-fashioned two-step, and
not in these times when dancing is a cross between a wrestling
match, a contortion act and a trip on a roller-coaster, and is
either named for an animal, like the Bunny Hug and the Tarantula
Glide, or for a town, like the Mobile Mop-Up, and the Far Rockaway
Rock and the South Bend Bend. His friends would interfere--or the
authorities would. He can go in swimming, it is true; but if he
turns over and floats, people yell out that somebody has set the
life raft adrift; and if he basks at the water's edge, boats will
come in and try to dock alongside him; and if he takes a sun bath
on the beach and sunburns, there's so everlasting much of him to be
sunburned that he practically amounts to a conflagration. He
can't shoot rapids, craps or big game with any degree of comfort;
nor play billiards. He can't get close enough to the table to
make the shots, and he puts all the English on himself and none of
it on the cue ball.

Consider the gainful pursuits. Think how many of them are denied
to the man who may have energy and ability but is shut out because
there are a few extra terraces on his front lawn. A fat man cannot
be a leading man in a play. Nobody desires a fat hero for a novel.
A fat man cannot go in for aeroplaning. He cannot be a wire-walker
or a successful walker of any of the other recognized brands--
track, cake, sleep or floor. He doesn't make a popular waiter.
Nobody wants a fat waiter on a hot day. True, you may make him
bring your order under covered dishes, but even so, there is still
that suggestion of rain on a tin roof that is distasteful to so
many.

So I repeat that fat people are always getting the worst of it,