[Illustration: "64 BROAD."]

But upon this subject men are less inclined to be fussy, and by the same
token more inclined, on having accomplished a cure, to take a justifiable
pride in it and to brag publicly about it. As I stated a moment ago, I
claim Mr. Blythe viewed the matter in a proper and commendable light when
he took pen in hand to describe more or less at length his reduction
processes. So, too, did that other notable of the literary world, Mr.
Vance Thompson. Mr. Thompson would be the last one to deny that once upon
a time he undeniably was large. The first time I ever saw him--it was in
Paris some years ago, and he was walking away from me and had his back to
me and was wearing a box coat--I thought for a moment they were taking a
tractor across town. All that, however, belongs to the past. Just so soon
as Mr. Thompson had worked out a system of dieting and by personal
application had proved its success he wrote the volume Eat and Grow Thin,
embodying therein his experiences, his course of treatment and his advice
to former fellow sufferers. So you see in saying now what I mean to say I
do but follow in the mouth-prints of the famous.

Besides, when I got fat I capitalized my fatness in the printed word. I
told how it felt to be fat.

I described how natural it was for a fat man to feel like the Grand Cañon
before dinner and like the Royal Gorge afterwards.

I told how, if he wedged himself into a telephone booth and said, "64
Broad," persons overhearing him were not sure whether he was asking
Central for a number or telling a tailor what his waist measurements were.

I told how deeply it distressed him as he walked along, larding the earth