"No; it's nothing," said Vic; "and I didn't come for sticking-plasters or poultices. I want your advice."
"You shall have it. What is the trouble?"
"I want you to tell me just how I should live, while developing my muscles, in order that I may gain strength and activity as rapidly as possible."
"What! going to make a prize-fighter of yourself? I thought you cared more for triumphs won with your head."
"No, I'm not going to be a prize-fighter," replied Vic; "but I am going to get up all the muscle there is in me, and I want to know about diet, etc."
"Well," said the doctor, "perhaps you are a trifle flabby for want of exercise, and I'm not sure that you can do better than train a little. As to diet, quit coffee and tea, eat plenty of roast beef and other wholesome plain food, let pastry alone, and don't study just before or just after a hearty meal; get ten hours' sleep in every twenty-four, if you can; and it won't take much training to make you robust."
Clearly the doctor had no thought that Vic intended anything more than to make himself robust and healthy; but Vic had secured the information he wanted.
The next day he fitted up a number of gymnastic appliances in the cow barn. He fastened ring ropes to the beams, and constructed some parallel bars; he swung a ladder horizontally, and hung a bag of sand on a level with his breast. Then his training began. When he got out of bed in the morning he took a cold bath, and rubbed himself well with a coarse towel. Then slipping on some light clothing, he went out and ran around two or three blocks at a good round pace. On his return, after taking breath, he swung by his hands on his ring ropes, drawing himself up first with both hands, and then, after a week's practice, with one hand at a time. The horizontal bars and the ladder came next, each furnishing a variety of exercises for different muscles. Finally, Vic would stand in front of his sand bag and strike it with his fists a great many times.
At first these muscular exercises made him stiff and sore, but this effect soon passed away, and day by day he increased the amount of exercise taken. His muscles grew in size and hardened. Feats that had been impossible to him at first, became easy, and the exercise which at first seemed to exhaust him became positively delightful. Devising new exercises and new apparatus every week, he presently found that he was acquiring something besides strength—he was growing expert in all manner of agile feats. He practiced trapeze performances, and rapidly acquired an accuracy of eye, a steadiness of nerves, which made easy and safe many cat-like feats, in which, if he had attempted them a few weeks before, he must certainly have broken his neck.
His mother had anxiously watched his conduct; and one evening she seized upon a favorable moment for remonstrance, seeking to dissuade him from his purpose of vengeance. He heard her silently, and when she had done, he replied, very calmly, but very resolutely: