The Hard Life Read Online Free PDF Page B

Something like what they have in schools. The sound of it goes well with general and gymnasium. That’s why I took it. Join the GGG.
    –And where did all those postal orders come from?
    –From the other side. I put a small ad. in one of the papers. I want to teach people to walk the high wire.
    –Is that what the General Georama Gymnasium is for, for heaven’s sake?
    –Yes. And it’s one of the cheapest courses in the world. A great number of people want to walk the high wire and show off. Some of them may be merely mercenary and anxious to make an easy, quick fortune with some great circus.
    –And are you teaching them this by post?
    –Well, yes.
    –What’s going to happen if one of them falls and gets killed?
    –A verdict of death by misadventure, I suppose. But it’s most unlikely because I don’t think any of them will dare to get up on the wire any distance from the ground. If they’re young their parents will stop them. If they’re old, rheumatism, nerves and decayed muscles will make it impossible.
    –Do you mean you’re going to have a correspondence course with those people?
    –No. They get a copy of my four-page book of instructions. Price sixpence only. It’s for nothing. A packet of fags and a box of matches would cost you nearly that, and no fag would give you the thrill of thinking about the high wire.
    –This looks to me like a swindle.
    –Rubbish. I’m only a bookseller. The valuable instructions and explanations are given by Professor Latimer Dodds. And he has included warnings of the danger as well.
    –Who is Professor Latimer Dodds?
    –A retired trapeze and high wire artist.
    –I never heard of him.
    –Here, take a look at the course yourself. I’m posting off copies just now to my clients.
    I took the crudely-printed folder he handed me and put it in my pocket, saying that I would look over it later and make sure that Mr Collopy didn’t see it. I didn’t want the brother to appraise my reactions to his handiwork, for already I had a desire to laugh. Downstairs, Mr Collopy was out and Annie was in the bedroom colloguing with Mrs Crotty. I lit the gas and there and then had a sort of free lesson on how to walk the high wire. The front page or cover read ‘T HE H IGH W IRE-— Nature Held at Bay—Spine-chilling Spectacle Splenetises Sporting Spectators—By Professor H. Q. Latimer Dodds’.
    Lower down was the title of the Gymnasium and our own address. There was no mention of the brother by name but a note said ‘Consultations with the Director by appointment only’. I was horrified to think of strangers calling and asking Mr Collopy to be good enough to make an appointment for them with the Director of the Gymnasium.
    The top of the left inside page had a Foreword which I think I may quote:

    ‘It were folly to asseverate that periastral peripatesis on the aes ductile, or wire, is destitute of profound peril not only to sundry membra, or limbs, but to the back and veriest life itself. Wherefore is the reader most graciously implored to abstain from le risque majeur by first submitting himself to the most perspicacious scrutiny by highly-qualified physician or surgeon for, in addition to anatomical verifications, evidence of Ménière’s Disease, caused by haemorrhage into the equilibristic labyrinth of the ears, causing serious nystagmus and insecurity of gait. If giddiness is suspected to derive from gastric disorder, resort should be had to bromide of potassium, acetanilide, bromural or chloral. The aural labyrinth consists of a number of membranous chambers and tubes immersed in fluid residing in the cavity of the inner ear, in mammals joined to the cochlea. The membranous section of the labyrinth consists of two small bags, the saccule and the utricle, and three semi-circular canals which open into it. The nerves which supply the labyrinth end with a number of cells attired in hair-like projections which, when grouped, form the two otolith organs in the saccule and