It is accomplished mainly by stretching the muscles of the knees, hips, chest, throat, and other parts of the body, and maintaining them rigidly in that position by what is more or less an exercise of will-power. Of this feat I do not pretend to be the originator. A man named Willard, an American, did the same thing in the States. I learnt the trick from him, or rather I should say that I got the idea of it from seeing him do it; and so far as I am aware I am the only man, other than Willard himself, who has succeeded in accomplishing it.
For it must not be imagined that it is an easy thing to do. On the contrary, it is exceedingly difficult. It is also apt to be dangerous. Willard, not long since, overstrained himself while practising it one day; and I myself have found the ill effects so pronounced that I never produced the feat—as was my original intention—in public, and I now only perform it very occasionally in private for the benefit of my friends.
How I first came to know about it was this way. Inman, the billiard champion, was visiting my house, and he brought Willard with him. After lunch we strolled out on the lawn, and I suddenly noticed that my American guest had apparently grown taller; as indeed, of course, he had. Naturally, however, I put it down to my fancy. But a minute or so later, on looking up suddenly from a flower I had been examining, I saw that he was taller than ever, and I suppose I looked the amazement I felt. Anyway, Inman and he burst out laughing, and the former then introduced Willard as “The Man Who Grows.”
Afterwards Mr. Willard was good enough to explain his method to me, and that night, after my guests had gone, I started practising on my own account. While I was at it, and still more after I had finished, I felt something of the sensation experienced in the olden days by criminals on the rack. Every bone, muscle, and sinew in my body ached; every nerve seemed on the quiver. But I persevered; and in time I succeeded.
I found, however, that the difficulty of the feat, and incidentally its attendant pain and discomfort, increased enormously with each additional inch. The first one was not so bad. But putting its difficulties, etc., at, say, ten, then those inseparable from the next inch of increase were fully one hundred; the third inch was represented by one thousand, and so on. In short, it resolved itself into a case of what mathematicians call, I believe, geometrical progression.
For these reasons I should not recommend the ordinary man to attempt the feat. He may easily do himself a serious inquiry. The strain told hardly on me, as I have already said.
I may mention that I have succeeded in mystifying a good many people by this growing feat, including at least one famous Scotland Yard detective. I was playing billiards with him, and an argument arose as to our relative heights. He was a tall man, measuring over six feet in his stockings, which is also my normal height. His impression was that he was taller than I, and to settle the point we adjourned to a police station and were measured by a machine that they kept there for recording the heights of criminals.
He, of course, measured his ordinary six feet odd. I stretched myself ever so slightly, and of course without any apparent effort, and beat him by two inches. “Well,” he exclaimed, “I should never have thought it!” “Oh,” I retorted, “I believe it’s the fault of that old machine of yours. It doesn’t record accurately. I’m taller than that.”
NORMAL HEIGHT