And though he had ever looked the gentleman, he had known that the New York Athletic Club and other similar clubs were not for him; they pried a bit too much into a candidate's social and professional standing.

So he had turned to a club where really searching inquiries were rarely made; for years he had belonged to a branch of the Y.M.C.A.

located just off Broadway, and had played handball and boxed with chunky, slow-footed city detectives who were struggling to retain some physical activity, and with fat playwrights, and with Jewish theatrical managers, and with the few authentic Christians who occasionally strayed into the place and seemed ill at ease therein.

He had liked this club for another reason; his sense of humor had often been highly excited by the thought of his being a member of the Y.M.C.A.
Having this instinct for physical fitness, he had not greatly minded being a coal-passer during the greater part of his stay at Sing Sing; better that than working in the knitting mills; so that now, though underfed and under weight, he was active and hard-muscled.
Larry Brainard could not have told why, and just when, he had turned to devious ways.

He had never put that part of his life under the microscope.