Of all the learned professions, pugilism is the one in which the trainedexpert is most sharply divided from the mere dabbler. In other fieldsthe amateur may occasionally hope to compete successfully with the manwho has made a business of what is to him but a sport, but at boxingnever: and the whole demeanour of Bugs Butler showed that he had laidthis truth to heart. It would be too little to say that his bearingwas confident: he comported himself with the care-free jauntiness ofan infant about to demolish a Noah's Ark with a tack-hammer. CycloneMullinses might withstand him for fifteen rounds where they yielded toa K-leg Binns in the fifth, but, when it came to beating up asparring-partner and an amateur at that, Bugs Butler knew hispotentialities. He was there forty ways and he did not attempt toconceal it. Crouching as was his wont, he uncoiled himself like astriking rattlesnake and flicked Ginger lightly over his guard. Thenhe returned to his crouch and circled sinuously about the ring with theamiable intention of showing the crowd, payers and deadheads alike, whatreal footwork was. If there was one thing on which Bugs Butler pridedhimself, it was footwork.
The adverb "lightly" is a relative term, and the blow which had justplanted a dull patch on Ginger's cheekbone affected those present indifferent degrees. Ginger himself appeared stolidly callous. Sallyshuddered to the core of her being and had to hold more tightly to therope to support herself. The two wise guys mocked openly. To thewise guys, expert connoisseurs of swat, the thing had appeared richlyfarcical. They seemed to consider the blow, administered to a thirdparty and not to themselves, hardly worth calling a blow at all. Twomore, landing as quickly and neatly as the first, left them equallycold.
"Call that punching?" said the first wise guy.
"Ah!" said the second wise guy.
But Mr. Butler, if he heard this criticism--and it is probable that hedid--for the wise ones had been restrained by no delicacy of feelingfrom raising their voices, was in no way discommoded by it. Bugs Butlerknew what he was about. Bright eyes were watching him, and he meant togive them a treat. The girls like smooth work. Any roughneck could sailinto a guy and knock the daylights out of him, but how few could beclever and flashy and scientific? Few, few, indeed, thought Mr. Butleras he slid in and led once more.
Something solid smote Mr. Butler's nose, rocking him on to his heels andinducing an unpleasant smarting sensation about his eyes. He backedaway and regarded Ginger with astonishment, almost with pain. Until thismoment he had scarcely considered him as an active participant in thescene at all, and he felt strongly that this sort of thing was bad form.It was not being done by sparring-partners.
A juster man might have reflected that he himself was to blame. He hadundeniably been careless. In the very act of leading he had allowed hiseyes to flicker sideways to see how Sally was taking this exhibition ofscience, and he had paid the penalty. Nevertheless, he was piqued. Heshimmered about the ring, thinking it over. And the more he thought itover, the less did he approve of his young assistant's conduct. Hardthoughts towards Ginger began to float in his mind.
Ginger, too, was thinking hard thoughts. He had not had an easy timesince he had come to the training camp, but never till to-day had heexperienced any resentment towards his employer. Until this afternoonBugs Butler had pounded him honestly and without malice, and he had gonethrough it, as the other sparring-partners did, phlegmatically, takingit as part of the day's work. But this afternoon there had been adifference. Those careless flicks had been an insult, a deliberateoffence. The man was trying to make a fool of him, playing to thegallery: and the thought of who was in that gallery inflamed Ginger pastthought of consequences. No one, not even Mr. Butler, was more keenlyalive than he to the fact that in a serious conflict with a man whoto-morrow night might be light-weight champion of the world he stood nochance whatever: but he did not intend to be made an exhibition of infront of Sally without doing something to hold his end up. He proposedto go down with his flag flying, and in pursuance of this object he dugMr. Butler heavily in the lower ribs with his right, causing that expertto clinch and the two wise guys to utter sharp barking sounds expressiveof derision.
"Say, what the hell d'ya think you're getting at?" demanded theaggrieved pugilist in a heated whisper in Ginger's ear as they fell intothe embrace. "What's the idea, you jelly bean?"
Ginger maintained a pink silence. His jaw was set, and the temper whichNature had bestowed upon him to go with his hair had reached whiteheat. He dodged a vicious right which whizzed up at his chin out of thebreaking clinch, and rushed. A left hook shook him, but was too highto do more. There was rough work in the far corner, and suddenly withstartling abruptness Bugs Butler, bothered by the ropes at his back andtrying to side-step, ran into a swing and fell.
"Time!" shouted the scandalized Mr. Burrowes, utterly aghast atthis frightful misadventure. In the whole course of his professionalexperience he could recall no such devastating occurrence.
The audience was no less startled. There was audible gasping. Thenewspaper men looked at each other with a wild surmise and conjured uppleasant pictures of their sporting editors receiving this sensationalitem of news later on over the telephone. The two wise guys, continuingto pursue Mr. Butler with their dislike, emitted loud and raucouslaughs, and one of them, forming his hands into a megaphone, urged thefallen warrior to go away and get a rep. As for Sally, she was consciousof a sudden, fierce, cave-womanly rush of happiness which swept awaycompletely the sickening qualms of the last few minutes. Her teethwere clenched and her eyes blazed with joyous excitement. She lookedat Ginger yearningly, longing to forget a gentle upbringing and shoutcongratulation to him. She was proud of him. And mingled with the pridewas a curious feeling that was almost fear. This was not the mild andamiable young man whom she was wont to mother through the difficultiesof a world in which he was unfitted to struggle for himself. This was anew Ginger, a stranger to her.
On the rare occasions on which he had been knocked down in the past,it had been Bugs Butler's canny practice to pause for a while and restbefore rising and continuing the argument, but now he was up almostbefore he had touched the boards, and the satire of the second wise guy,who had begun to saw the air with his hand and count loudly, lost itspoint. It was only too plain that Mr. Butler's motto was that a manmay be down, but he is never out. And, indeed, the knock-down had beenlargely a stumble. Bugs Butler's educated feet, which had carried himunscathed through so many contests, had for this single occasion managedto get themselves crossed just as Ginger's blow landed, and it was tohis lack of balance rather than the force of the swing that his downfallhad been due.
"Time!" he snarled, casting a malevolent side-glance at his manager."Like hell it's time!"
And in a whirlwind of flying gloves he flung himself upon Ginger,driving him across the ring, while Mr. Burrowes, watch in hand, staredwith dropping jaw. If Ginger had seemed a new Ginger to Sally, stillmore did this seem a new Bugs Butler to Mr. Burrowes, and the managergroaned in spirit. Coolness, skill and science--these had been thequalities in his protege which had always so endeared him to Mr. LesterBurrowes and had so enriched their respective bank accounts: and now, onthe eve of the most important fight in his life, before an audience ofnewspaper men, he had thrown them all aside and was making an exhibitionof himself with a common sparring-partner.
That was the bitter blow to Mr. Burrowes. Had this lapse into theunscientific primitive happened in a regular fight, he might havemourned and poured reproof into Bug's ear when he got him back in hiscorner at the end of the round; but he would not have experienced thisfeeling of helpless horror--the sort of horror an elder of the churchmight feel if he saw his favourite bishop yielding in public to thefascination of jazz. It was the fact that Bugs Butler was loweringhimself to extend his powers against a sparring-partner that shocked Mr.Burrowes. There is an etiquette in these things. A champion may batterhis sparring-partners into insensibility if he pleases, but he must doit with nonchalance. He must not appear to be really trying.
And nothing could be more manifest than that B
ugs Butler was trying. Hiswhole fighting soul was in his efforts to corner Ginger and destroy him.The battle was raging across the ring and down the ring, and up the ringand back again; yet always Ginger, like a storm-driven ship, contrivedsomehow to weather the tempest. Out of the flurry of swinging arms heemerged time after time bruised, bleeding, but fighting hard.
For Bugs Butler's fury was defeating its object. Had he remained hiscool and scientific self, he could have demolished Ginger and cutthrough his defence in a matter of seconds. But he had lapsed back intothe methods of his unskilled novitiate. He swung and missed, swung andmissed again, struck but found no vital spot. And now there was blood onhis face, too. In some wild melee the sacred fount had been tapped, andhis teeth gleamed through a crimson mist.
The Wise Guys were beyond speech. They were leaning against one another,punching each other feebly in the back. One was crying.
And then suddenly the end came, as swiftly and unexpectedly as thething had begun. His wild swings had tired Bugs Butler, and with fatigueprudence returned to him. His feet began once more their subtle weavingin and out. Twice his left hand flickered home. A quick feint, a short,jolting stab, and Ginger's guard was down and he was swaying in themiddle of the ring, his hands hanging and his knees a-quiver.
Bugs Butler measured his distance, and Sally shut her eyes.
CHAPTER XIV. MR. ABRAHAMS RE-ENGAGES AN OLD EMPLOYEE
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