I inwardly insisted, and I think partly believed, that my lung power was too great for the capacity of my throat opening, hence pants.

I cast a pitying eye at other men, deep of girth and purple of face, waddling down the platform, and as I scudded on past them I would say to myself that after all there was a tremendous difference between being obese and being merely well fleshed out.

The real reason of course was that my legs had remained reasonably firm and trim while the torso was inflating.

For I was one who got fat not all over at once but in favored localities.

And I was even as the husband is whose wife is being gossiped about--the last person in the neighborhood to hear the news.
As though it were yesterday I remember the day and the place and the attendant circumstances when and where awakening was forced upon me.