The New York herald., 1921-10-23
BY DAN CAREY.


tA/ of growing thin. anyway?
Now that we have achieved the
ambition of our life, attained the success
that comes from honest endeavor, and have
succeeded in working up to rotundity of
form that pleases us and cheeriness of
spirit that is the envy of our friends, we are
informed that our system was all wrong and
that we should have been endeavoring to
remain thin.
We don't believe it.
We are fat and intend to remain so We
are perfectly satisfied. No rolling on the
floor for us, no boxing with an imaginary
antagonist, no waving Of arms like wind
mill in front of a blank wall, no dieting.
no five mile runs before breakfast. Quite
the contrary. Plenty of sleep for us, three
good honest meals a day, a bit more to
drink than the law allows, as little work
as possible and a seat and half on the
street cars. That's our programme.
To be perfectly frank we hesitated at
some length before taking issue with two
such eminent students of dietetics as Don
Marquis and Irwin Cobb, and after reading
One Third Off" by the latter, and Eat,
Drink and Be Merry for Tomorrow Ye Diet, .
by the former, we waited patiently for some
other member of our group of Best Minds
to answer them. They have not done so.
The task is ours.
Shakespeare had the right idea. One of
the craftiest of all his characters is Julius
Caesar. Shakespeare has him say:
Let me have men about me that are fat,
Sleek-headed men, and such sleep o.
nights;
Yon Cassius has lean and hungry look;
He thinks too much; such men are dan
gerous"
Shakespeare was right. Such men are in
deed dangerous. II Irwin Cobb and Don Mar
quis don't change their way of living and
return to a normal diet again they will
both eventually forsake the field of humor
and become dangerous. We expect the
time to come when Irwin Cobb will have
set of whiskers and be making a speech
from soap box i'm Madison Square, while
Don Marquis wearing lean an6 hungry
look will be leading mob of rioters in an
attack on a restaurant.
~ NCE we were almost thin.
~ Last spring we began wasting
away. Our measurements were not
up to standard. Around the waist we were
bare forty Our chest was no more than
forty-six. The supply of collars which we
had accumulated, all Of size seventeen. were
beginning to be too loose around our neck
Our clothes began to look as If they were
not our own but appeared to have been
bestowed upon by some stout friend who
had grown tired Of them.
Our disposition became affected. Trivial
things began to annoy us We even got
so we could miss meal without being in
convenienced in body or hampered i'm mental
processes
complete realization of what we were
drifting into came TO us one afternoon at
the \Press Club. All well do we remember
the day. We were playing Kelly pool Our
opponents were Don Marquis Abe Baerman
and Baron Folger. We began to lose. We
had a complete reversal of form.
Suddenly II came to us that we were not
playing Kelly pool al all We were really
trying to win.
Hastily excusing ourself we placed our
cue back in the rack, and with the tears
ready to burst from our eyes we left the
club AS remember It, we forgot TO pay
up.
At midnight i'm the loneliness of our ii.
brary we fought against our temptations
and won. We realized that we would either
have to purchase an entire outfit of new
clothes and then probably begin writing or
serious subjects or we would have TO re.
form, drink more. eat more inteeently and
work less I'm order to build oursef back tc
where our clothes would 1T again and our
friends be glad to see us.
WYE had a general idea of what TO do IL
M/ order TO build up, but we wanted
quick action. so we wrote letter
to the lady who has charge Of the magazine