A HEAVYWEIGHT.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 22, Issue 67, 29 August 1911, Page 5

A HEAVYWEIGHT.

A BRIGGS TRIED EVERY METHOD TO BECOME THiN. It was a bitter moment for Briggs 'when he overheard Miss Diggleson’s remark. I Ethel Diggleston, it must be explained, was a young person who had 'changed the topography and colourling of the entire earth and the surrounding atmosphere for Briggs. As yet he. had nursed the fact secretly, hopefully, with the intention of 'breaking the news to Ethel when the tim# was propitious. Meanwhile he had been one of her constant adorers and had gained comfort from the idea that she rather liked him. This was before he heard what Miss Dlggleson ' said to Keating.

j ” Goodness,” Ethel had laughed, In answer to something Keating said as another man passed by. ” I should say he is a sight ! I detest a fat man !”

| And Briggs was—well, stout ! | As lie steadied himself after the blow he realised with another wave of despair, that Keating who also I hung around Miss Diggleston, a |good deal was thin and rail-like. If i Ethel did not like fat men she must perforce like thin ones, and as Keating was skinny, therefore — j Briggs drifted oil by himself, | crushed. He explained his departure j to the crowd by saying that he hadja headache. Keating unconsciously tempted wrath and destruction by | singing out— “ Oh, you heavyweights ; are always up against it in the endurance race !” ‘

j When Briggs weighed himself the next day he found that ho tipped the beam at 187 pounds. Pie noticed that his coat made in the early summer, seemed tight under the arms if he wriggled them in a certain way. I The thought that maybe be was getting fatter was keenly agonising. 'That day Briggs gave up sugar in bio j coffee and refused dessert. Also he began walking two miles before • breakfast each morning.

j His panic when he stepped on a penny weighing machine a week later 'and saw the pointer trembling above the figures 190 on the dial was as- ' suaged only after he had hunted up two more weighing machines, which ' gave his weight as 187'. The thought of fatness obsessed him. Bach time he went to see Ethel Diggleson he did so with a sinking heart, and the i feeling that he was a fool for hie : pains. Hadn’t he heard what sac h&d said to Keating 7

I After he was in Ethel’s presence J and found her as gay and kind as ever his wound seared over, and hope | again chirped In his heart. Yet his spirits sunk again as he walked i homeward, for he bitterly thought .that Ethel was dissembling. Of (course, he -eflccted, she didn’t deliberately want to deceive him, but she ! was so swoet-natured that she could : not bear to hurt bis feelings, so she ! concealed her aversion.

j Briggs worried enough over his stoutness to have wasted a thin man ,to a shadow, but it did not reduce his weight at all. His face seemed to grow rounder. He hated to sec I himself in a glass and hife happy look I vanished entirely. People wondered j when they met him if Briggs had lost his money or if any relative of his had died, for 'ordinarily he was so ! cheerful.

j But Briggs could not get thin. Whenever he saw Keating’s skinny ! form Briggs felt envy and hatred surge within his breast. He suffered tortures whenever Ethel looked at , Keating because he felt that she must be admiring that lath-like figure. It made Briggs nervous and silent and ■miserable.

He was always hungry those days, because the spectre fat loomed over his favourite dishes, and he never ' darqd eat all he wanted. He oxerIcised religiously for two weeks with- ■ out weighting and then when he stepped on the scales feeling that he must have lost at least 10 pounds he found to his horror that he had gained five pounds.

That night Briggs in the seclusion of his room, rolled on the floor. He had heard people joking about the n'ew fad that women had for keeping down their. weight, and he was desperate to clutch at anr straw. Briggs rolled 50 times that night, and 50 times the next morning, and then went round for two days feeling as though he bad been run through a com shelter and then put under a trip-hammer. There was not a spot on him that did not hurt and he was just as fat as ever. When he faced the fact that worry, hard exercise, and restricted food had not a particle of effect in reducing his weight, and that he evidently had been born to be fat, he mournfully resigned himself to his fate much" as one resigns oneself to the possession of green eyes or carroty hair. ‘

j His life was blighted, for, of course he could never win Ethel. | He went to call on Ethel then, after a considerable absence with the 'feeling that it was probably to be his farewell visit. He must make i way for a better man —meaning a thinner one.

It ' seemed doubly hard as he sat and watched Ethel’s face/ while she laughed and talked brightly, to think that he must lose her. -ruddenly he found himself brrn’ inv in on her account of a dance to tell her, fiercely, stammeringly, that he wasn’t coming again and he didn’t blame her, but he couldn’t help loving her, and it was very easy to love her. When Ethel had finally sorted out and made a coherent chart of Brigg’s i remarks, discovering by the process j what it was all about, she laughed land cried, ending it. all with her (head on a broad shoulder. Then j Briggs suddenly realised that he and i Ethel were engaged !

I '• Bui..” he said, when ha began to

collect Ms thoughts, " I heard you tell Keating that you detested a fat man. You did say it, Ethel !” “ Why I do,” Ethel said, promptly. “ But you’re not fat. Wh 5, you’re just the kind, of man I like.-”—” Chicago News.”