Page:Firecrackers a realistic novel.pdf/237

 it is that it is all true, but I must come down to my own history, making it as brief as possible.

You need not abbreviate it on my account, Campaspe urged. I am willing to listen two days or longer.

I was brought up by a Danish family in Copenhagen, Gunnar continued; hence my name, Gunnar. My guardian was an honest burgess of some fortune; his wife, a sedate and careful housewife. The incidents of my childhood are not essential to this narrative and I shall not go into them. Suffice it to say that I was sent to the University at Copenhagen, famous, as you may have heard, for its training of athletes, and it was there that I became proficient in the Grecian games.

I always nourished an instinctive desire to develop my body. My ambition was to force my muscles to be subservient to my slightest whim. Perfect co-ordination was my aim. As I grew older and became more interested in the philosophy of life, an inclination inherited, probably, from my father, this instinct seemed even more reasonable to me. I looked about, and what did I see? People, consumed with hate and rage and lust, existing like squirrels in their cages, continuously and unnecessarily pawing perdurable treadmills. For what? Only to cause them to revolve. Others reminded me more of panthers in the zoological gardens, striding incessantly behind their bars from one side of