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And ever the Spider's respect and admiration for the mild-eyed, quiet-spoken champion waxed and grew. "Bo!" said he, dexterously catching the toppling bird, glass case and all, for the second time, and addressing Ravenslee with it clasped to his heart, "bo," he repeated, his eyes shining, "I guess Joe Madden, the greatest battler of 'em all, is Joe Madden still.
A clever Fitzsimmons' shift on the part of the Battler removed this obstacle, and some brisk work ensued in neutral territory. Percy landed twice without a return. The Battler's round by a shade. "The Cyclone came out of his corner with a rush, getting home on the Battler's shirt-front and following it up with a right to the chin.
"I got away with the swags, didn't I? Where'd they be now if it wasn't for me?" Then I sat on him pretty hard for his pretensions, and paid him out for all the patronage he'd worked off on me, and called him a mug straight, and walked round him, so to speak, and blowed, and told him never to pretend to me again that he was a battler.
He felt his head slowly clearing. What a punch that Mexican had! He must get to his feet and cover. "Seven eight " He found strength to jump up. He saw nothing before him. He heard shouting, miles away, it seemed. His arms were heavy when he lifted them to his head. He tried to set himself. His body reeled as the Battler pounded him, his head, his face, his back.
Like a flash he was up again, wild to close with his rival and get his fingers about his throat. There, in the little natural amphitheatre, with only the ancient trees as silent witnesses, was staged again the oft-fought fight between the boxer and the battler, but the decision was not to rest on points.
Defeated or undefeated, the writer who always is trying to master something more difficult than the work he used to do preserves his self-respect and the respect of his worth-while neighbors. The fellow with the canker at his heart is not the battler but the envious shirker who is too "proud" to risk a fall. Swallow what you suppose to be your pride; it really is a false sense of dignity.
Blake's warning came back to him "keep cool and wait." That was it, wait, wait for a chance to land a blow that would end the fight. He shot out his left again as the Battler came at him. It missed and the strength he put behind it carried his head forward. Like a flash the Mexican's right crashed to his jaw. John stumbled to his knees. The referee was over him. "One two three four five six "
With a spring like a cat the Mexican was on him. He shot up his right and it pounded into the Battler's ribs. He tried to wrestle himself out of the clinch into which the Mexican had thrown himself. The referee tore them apart. "None of that," he said to the Battler. "Stop holding in the clinches." The end came a minute later.
"No," said John, with a laugh, "the beating the Battler gave me was enough. You know, it's a good man who knows when he has had enough." "Ya didn't seem to know when ya had enough da night ya mixed it with da Battler," said Murphy. "Ya took a beltin' that night and came up for more as long as ya could." "Let's step inside; I'll buy you a drink of whatever they have," John invited.
A white flash blinded him as he dropped. He was down for the count of eight. He was "out on his feet" when he struggled up again. He smiled feebly and pawed in front of him with his left. The Battler brushed it aside and as John fell forward in a last desperate effort to clinch, his right went over.
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