Not yet eighteen years old, healthy and with labour-hardened but unhurt muscles, like any young animal I needed diversion, excitement, something beyond the books and the mechanical toil.
I strayed into Young Men's Christian Associations.

The life there was healthful and athletic, but too juvenile.

For me it was too late.

I was not boy, nor youth, despite my paucity of years.

I had bucked big with men.