The Wrangell sentinel., 1923-03-22

 tempted to do some idiotic thing, and have to suppress such impulses with a mailed fist. It's all the outcome of vanity. A man hates to admit that he's a back number. He wants to assure the plain people that, notwith- standing his gray whiskers and string halted legs, he's a four-horse team with dog under the wagon, when 1t comes to athletic skill.
 T was in the livery barn the other evening, when young Fretsinger be- gan explaining tha. he had been talk ing boxing lessons from one of the old masters. He had learned all the tricks of the game, and was just suf- fering agonies because there was mo- body present who would stand up and exchange scientific swats with him.
 Tn my younger days, if I do say 1t myself, was a star performer in the ordinary ock-down-and-drag-ou form of combat, but I never was worth shucks at boxing. Nobody knows that better than I do. Why, then, did 1 inform Fretsinger that would be glad to spar a few rounds with him? It surely was vanity and nothing else. I had an idea that, while he might have plenty of the fancy stuff on hand, might land one of my old-time haymakers; in which case I felt sure the town would soon be ringing with the story of an old mans prowess-
 "So I took off my long jimswinger coat, and my vest. and stood up for battle. If anybody tells you, my friends, that Fretsinger doesn't know how to wield his hands. you may re- gard the story as roorback. l never saw fists so numerous as on that Occa- sion. I couldn't see anything else for a while, and they landed on me in many unexpected places, and I don't remember a time when l was so em- barrassed.
 "Fretsinger explained afterward that he merely tapped me gently be- cause I was a venerable man. old enough to be his grandfather. In that case I never want to become Involved in an argument with him when he is in earnest I had a black eye for week after this recital. and my nose has never satisfied me since. Every time I came downtown. I had to ex- plain to thousand people that black ened my eye while splitting kindling. or that I dropped sad-iron on 1t. There Is nothing more humiliating than a black eye, and I made up my mind that I'd try to realize my ad- vanced age thereafter, and behave my self like grave and reverend man.
 But no sooner had my eye recoy- cred than I was in trouble again. l saw some young men wrestling, ana paused to point out that they dldn know the rudiments of the game. l assured them that in my younger days I was a holy terror and I didn't think that my hand had lost its cunning. It would afford me genuine happiness, I said. to show them how wrestling was done in the palmy days of Null doon and Whistler.
 "So I removed my coat and vest and went into executive session with husky young man who had no respect for gray hairs. I am not sure about what followed, but I think he must have thrown me over his head Any how, made a great dent in the earth with my person, and I was so sore for two weeks that had to take myself around in a wheelbarrow. Of course, I am determined to make no more bad breaks of the kind, but haven't much confidence in myself, and tomorrow you may see me climbing tree half a mile high, to show some boys how to rob birds nests"