When winter came to the already dank basement, I developed a cough as loud as Camille's, and it was this that finally proved my undoing, or my doing. The director and the calisthenics instructor decided I was run down; I was too thin and round-shouldered, and I didn't sit up straight. They knew I spent my mornings off writing, and they said that was bad for Posture. They very nicely agreed I could go on writing, but I'd have to do exercises to combat it. I could take part of my lunch hour, or come in early and use the gym. Several times they even got me into the billowing bloomers, but I weighed ninety pounds, and on me the bloomers came down like harem trousers, only thick serge, which is a fabric no sultan would stand for. In desperation, I enrolled in a one-night-a-week copywriting course at New York University, and the professor there got me a job in advertising. It was five dollars less a week than Anne Morgan paid, but the atmosphere was full of pipe tobacco, and I found that infinitely healthier than Physical Education without men.

-- from "Unmixed Company"