CHAPTER III

_Regarding Liver-Eating Watkins and Others_


It was after I had moved to New York and had taken a desk job that I
detected myself in the act, as it were, of plumping out. Cognizant of the
fact, as I was, I nevertheless took no curative or corrective measures in
the way of revising my diet. I was content to make excuses inwardly. I
said to myself that I came of a breed whose members in their mature years
were inclined to broaden noticeably. I said to myself that I was not
getting the amount of exercise that once I had; that my occupation was now
more sedentary, and therefore it stood to reason that I should take on a
little flesh here and there over my frame. Moreover, I felt good. If I had
felt any better I could have charged admission. My appetite was perfect,
my digestion magnificent, nay, awe-inspiring.

To me it seemed that physically I was just as active and agile as I had
been in those 'prentice years of my professional career when the ability
to shift quickly from place to place and to think with an ornithological
aptitude were conducive to a continuance of unimpaired health among young
reporters. Anyhow--thus I to myself in the same strain,
continuing--anyhow, I was not actually getting fat. Nothing so gross as
that. I merely was attaining to a pleasant, a becoming and a dignified
fullness of contour as I neared my thirtieth birthday. So why worry about
what was natural and normal among persons of my temperament, and having my