"You're looking radiant," I said appreciatively; "but it may only be because you're going to marry Billy next month." She smiled and blushed. "Well, I'll send it to you," she said. "And you try it for a week, and then tell me if you don't feel better. Oh, and don't do all the exercises to begin with; start with three or four of the easy ones." "Of course," I said. * * * * * * * I undid the wrappings eagerly, took off the lid of the box, and was confronted with (apparently) six pairs of braces. I shook them out of the box and saw I had made a mistake. It was one pair of braces for Magog. I picked it up, and I knew that I was in the presence of the Hyperion. In five minutes I had screwed a hook into the bedroom wall and attached the beautifier. Then I sat on the edge of the bed and looked at it. There was a tin plate, fastened to the top, with the word "LADIES" on it. I got up, removed it with a knife, and sat down again. Everything was very dusty, and I wondered when Adela had last developed herself. By-and-by I went into the other room to see if I had overlooked anything. I found on the floor a chart of exercises, and returned triumphantly with it. There were thirty exercises altogether, and the chart gave (1) A detailed explanation of how to do each particular exercise; (2) A photograph of a lady doing it. "After all," I reassured myself, after the first bashful glance, "it is Adela who has thrust this upon me; and she must have known." So I studied it. Nos. 10, 15 and 28 seemed the easiest; I decided to confine myself to them. For the first of these you strap yourself in at the waist, grasp the handles, and fall slowly backwards until your head touches the floor--all the elastic cords being then at full stretch. When I had got very slowly halfway down, an extra piece of elastic which had got hitched somewhere came suddenly into play, and I did the rest of the journey without a stop, finishing up sharply against the towel horse. The chart had said, "Inhale going down," and I was inhaling hard at the moment that the towel horse and two damp towels spread themselves over my face. "So much for Exercise 10," I thought, as I got up. "I'll just get the idea to-night, and then start properly to-morrow. Now for No. 15." Somehow I felt instinctively that No. 15 would cause trouble. For No. 15 you stand on the right foot, fasten the left foot to one of the cords, and stretch it out as far as you can.... What--officially--you do then, I cannot say.... Some people can stand easily upon the right foot, when the left is fastened to the wall ... others cannot ... it is a gift.... Having recovered from my spontaneous rendering of No. 15 I turned to No. 28. This one, I realised, was extremely important; I would do it twelve times.