Free Gladiator by Philip Wylie Page A

appealed mightily to him. Now he stood in a prodigious vaulted room with a shimmering floor, a circular balcony, a varied array of apparatus. His hands clenched. Lefty quit him for a moment and came back with a man who wore knickers. “Mr. Woodman, this is—what the hell’s your name?”
    â€œDanner. Hugo Danner.”
    â€œMr. Woodman is the football coach.”
    Hugo took the man’s hand. Lefty excused himself. Mr. Woodman said: “Young Foresman said you played football.”
    â€œJust on a high-school team in Colorado.”
    â€œSaid you were husky. Go in my office and ask Fitzsimmons to give you a gym suit. Come out when you’re ready.”
    Hugo undressed and put on the suit. Fitzsimmons, the trainer, looked at him with warm admiration. “You’re sure built, son.”
    â€œYeah. That’s luck, isn’t it?”
    Then Hugo was taken to another office. Woodman asked him a number of questions about his weight, his health, his past medical history. He listened to Hugo’s heart and then led him to a scale. Hugo had lied about his weight.
    â€œI thought you said one hundred and sixty, Mr. Danner?”
    The scales showed two hundred and eleven, but it was impossible for a man of his size and build to weigh that much. Hugo had lied deliberately, hoping that he could avoid the embarrassment of being weighed. “I did, Mr. Woodman. You see—my weight is a sort of freak. I don’t show it—no one would believe it—and yet there it is.” He did not go into the details of his construction from a plasm new to biology.
    â€œHuh!” Mr. Woodman said. Together they walked out on the floor of the gymnasium. Woodman called to one of the figures on the track who was making slow, plodding circuits. “Hey, Nellie! Take this bird up and pace him for a lap. Make it fast.”
    A little smile came at the corners of Hugo’s mouth. Several of the men in the gymnasium stopped work to watch the trial of what was evidently a new candidate. “Ready?” Woodman said, and the runners crouched side by side. “Set? Go!”
    Nelson, one of the best sprinters Webster had had for years, dashed forward. He had covered thirty feet when he heard a voice almost in his ear. “Faster, old man.”
    Nelson increased. “Faster, boy, I’m passing you.” The words were spoken quietly, calmly. A rage filled Nelson. He let every ounce of his strength into his limbs and skimmed the canvas. Half a lap. Hugo ran at his side and Nelson could not lead him. The remaining half was not a race. Hugo finished thirty feet in the lead.
    Woodman, standing on the floor, wiped his forehead and bawled: “That the best you can do, Nellie?”
    â€œYes, sir.”
    â€œWhat in hell have you been doing to yourself?”
    Nelson drew a sobbing breath. “I—haven’t—done—a thing. Time—that man. He’s—faster than the intercollegiate mark.”
    Woodman, still dubious, made Hugo run against time. And Hugo, eager to make an impression and unguided by a human runner, broke the world’s record for the distance around the track by a second and three-fifths. The watch in Woodman’s hands trembled.
    â€œHey!” he said, uncertain of his voice, “come down here, will you?”
    Hugo descended the spiral iron staircase. He was breathing with ease. Woodman stared at him. “Lessee you jump.”
    Hugo was familiar with the distances for jumping made in track meets. He was careful not to overdo his effort. His running jump was twenty-eight feet, and his standing jump was eleven feet and some inches. Woodman’s face ran water. His eyes gleamed. “Danner,” he said, “where did you get that way?”
    â€œWhat way?”
    â€œI mean—what have you done all your life?”
    â€œNothing. Gone to school.”
    â€œTwo hundred and eleven pounds,” Woodman muttered, “run