And Marcia's co-workers in the nine-o'clock show, whither she had transferred her talents, were impressed with her tremendous pride in her husband's mental powers. Horace they knew only as a very slim, tight-lipped, and immature-looking young man, who waited every night to take her home. "Horace," said Marcia one evening when she met him as usual at eleven, "you looked like a ghost standing there against the street lights. You losing weight?" He shook his head vaguely. "I don't know. They raised me to a hundred and thirty-five dollars to-day, and---" "I don't care," said Marcia severely. "You're killing yourself working at night. You read those big books on economy---" "Economics," corrected Horace. "Well, you read 'em every night long after I'm asleep. And you're getting all stooped over like you were before we were married." "But, Marcia, I've got to---" "No, you haven't dear. I guess I'm running this shop for the present, and I won't let my fella ruin his health and eyes. You got to get some exercise." "I do. Every morning I---" "Oh, I know! But those dumb-bells of yours wouldn't give a consumptive two degrees of fever. I mean real exercise. You've got to join a gymnasium. 'Member you told me you were such a trick gymnast once that they tried to get you out for the team in college and they couldn't because you had a standing date with Herb Spencer?" "I used to enjoy it," mused Horace, "but it would take up too much time now." "All right," said Marcia. "I'll make a bargain with you. You join a gym and I'll read one of those books from the brown row of 'em." "'Pepys' Diary'? Why, that ought to be enjoyable. He's very light." "Not for me--he isn't. It'll be like digesting plate glass. But you been telling me how much it'd broaden my lookout. Well, you go to a gym three nights a week and I'll take one big dose of Sammy." Horace hesitated. "Well---" "Come on, now! You do some giant swings for me and I'll chase some culture for you." So Horace finally consented, and all through a baking summer he spent three and sometimes four evenings a week experimenting on the trapeze in Skipper's Gymnasium. And in August he admitted to Marcia that it made him capable of more mental work during the day. "MENS SANA IN CORPORE SANO," he said. "Don't believe in it," replied Marcia. "I tried one of those patent medicines once and they're all bunk. You stick to gymnastics." One night in early September while he was going through one of his contortions on the rings in the nearly deserted room he was addressed by a meditative fat man whom he had noticed watching him for several nights. "Say, lad, do that stunt you were doin' last night." Horace grinned at him from his perch. "I invented it," he said. "I got the idea from the fourth proposition of Euclid." "What circus he with?" "He's dead." "Well, he must of broke his neck doin' that stunt. I set here last night thinkin' sure you was goin' to break yours."