“Every bone in my body creaks. I haven’t got a muscle that isn’t sore. I ache in places that I didn’t even know I had. Why, Mr. Dunne,” she declared impressively, as a conclusion to the painful inventory, “if I tried to go through those exercises again to-day, I’d die!” “Grmph!” said Mr. Dunne, indicating that he was unimpressed. “I c-c-c-can’t do it and I won’t!” said Darcy, like a very naughty child. “Yah paid me three hundr’n sixty dollars, didn’t yah?” “Yes,” replied Darcy, her heart sinking, at the recollection of the sum which she had invested in assorted agonies. “Did yah think that was going to buy yah what yah’r after?” Darcy gulped dismally. “It ain’t. Money can’t buy it. Yah gotta have gu—grit.” Mr. Dunne achieved the timely amendment in the middle of the stronger qualification. Darcy’s mind went back to Gloria Greene’s preachment upon the text of “grit”: “You don’t know what the word means, yet.” Apparently she was in a fair way to find out. “Two minutes gone,” announced the trainer’s inexorable voice. How she did it she never knew. But under impulsion of the sterner will, she got into her gymnasium suit and was on the floor only three minutes past the hour. The apparatus which she had at first encountered with so much interest and curiosity now had a sinister effect of lying in wait like the implements of a dentist’s office. She speculated, with a shrinking of her whole frame, upon which one would be selected as the agency of the initial agony. Giving them not so much as a look, Mr. Andy Dunne led her to a large, rough mat and bade her stretch out on her back. “Lift the left foot in the air,” he directed. Darcy did so, with caution. “Higher!” said Mr. Dunne. “Oo-yee!” lamented Darcy. “Back. Lift the right foot in the air.” Darcy obeyed without enthusiasm. “Higher!” said Mr. Dunne. “Ow-wow!” mourned Darcy. “Back. Lift both feet in the air.” “I can’t!” said Darcy. “Yah gotta!” said Mr. Dunne. Two wavering, quivering legs rose slowly from the mat, attained an angle of forty-five degrees, and dropped back to earth with a thud. Their owner had been forcibly reminded of the three creases in her stomach by the fact that they had unanimously set to writhing and grinding upon each other in fiery convolutions of protest, resultant upon the unwonted angle of the legs. “Higher!” commanded the pitiless Mr. Dunne. “Can’t!” “Gotta!” With a spasmodic heave, the victim attained perhaps fifty degrees of elevation, and straightened out, gasping. Next her instructor had her sit up erect from a flat position, without aid from hands or elbows, whereat all the muscles in her back, thighs, and abdomen, hitherto unawakened, roused themselves and yelled in chorus. Then he had her repeat the whole devastating process from the first before he spoke the word of reprieve. “Nuff!” Darcy rolled over on her face and lay panting. “How d’ yah feel?” “Awful!” gasped Darcy. “Still a bit stiff?” “A bit! Oh-h-h-h!”