At no time did the street appear so well as it did now, in the dusk of the early New York spring. The darkness, which was not full darkness but a sort of blue mantle, threw a veil of illusion over it, and through the veil the lights came softly. Before the dusk it was crude realism, and when night fell there would be sinister shadows. But now it had a little beauty. It was like a picture a painter might have done some centuries ago, an unimportant and rather brutal picture, and time and grime and proper lighting had given it such value that one would pause before it for an instant, not knowing why the charm.
The old man sitting in the doorway of one of the little houses with the yellowish patch of grass surrounded by a warped iron railing hated the street, with the dull, cold hatred of old men. Yet he could n't get away from it. Often his son had suggested, and his wife when she was alive had suggested that they move to the country. "Yerra, do ye call that country?" he had snarled at the mention of Westchester, and Long and Staten islands; and that had killed the suggestion and they had tried to have him move up-town, to Harlem, but, "Yerra, what would I be doing up there?" he had rasped. The son had spoken of the pleasant places in Brooklyn, out Flatbush way. "Yerra, is it Brooklyn?" What impression he had of that worthy borough is hard to imagine, but he spoke with devastating contempt.
The truth was, the old man was wedded to Twenty-fourth Street. He was like some of his race who have ancient, uncomely wives whom they despise and hate but without whom they cannot live. There was the place it was fated for him to be. There was the shop where he got shaved every morning. There was the saloon where he had his three drinks a day, regular as the clock—one before lunch, one before dinner, and one before he went to bed. There was the news-stand where he snapped the daily paper from the hands of the old German woman. If an elevated train on Seventh Avenue were late, he would notice it. He had decided to be there, and there he remained.
To the eye the old man was a forbidding, a cold figure. It was more this forbidding and cold quality that made him old, rather than years. He could not have been much over fifty. But this fixity of habit, this impression of being a monument, had endowed him with antiquity. He was not a big man, but he gave the impression of size, of importance. His hair was gray, and that gave him dignity. His eye was of a colorless, aloof blue, the blue of ice. His gaunt, clean-shaven face had something ecclesiastical about it. His clothes were always a decent and expensive black, and a heavy gold watch-chain spanned his vest. He had always a stick by his side. His shoes were good and roomy, and somewhat old-fashioned. His hat was of black, hard felt, not a derby, nor yet a high hat, but one of those things that suggest property and respectability, and somehow land. His name was Mr. McCann.
The social standing of Mr. McCann on Twenty-fourth Street was something of a phenomenon. Every one accorded him a sort of a terrified respect. The Italian coal-and-wood man; the German newsdealer; the man in the cigar store where he indulged in his only vulgarity, plug tobacco, which he cut with a penknife and crumbled in the palm of his hand; the bartender in Slavin's who fixed his drinks to a nicety and had a cheery and respectful "Well, Mr. McCann?" for his each entry. The street recognized he was of them, but immensely superior. He was not a gentleman, so the respect was not from caste to caste but something much more real. None ever became familiar with him, nor would any sane man think of insulting him. Aloof and stern, with terrible dignity, he moved through the street. Even the children hushed as he drew near.
None in the street ever examined their hearts or minds as to why he was paid their tribute of respect. If they had they would have found no reason for it, but they would have paid it to him all the same. He was Mr. McCann.
And this was all the more strange because he was father of Irish Mike McCann, between whom and the middle-weight boxing championship of the world there stood only two men. Irish they loved; were proud of. But it was n't to the father of Irish that the respect was paid. It was to Mr. McCann.
A very strange thing about Mr. McCann was this: that he could only know time and space and circumstances in relation to himself. As thus: Seventh Avenue was not Seventh Avenue to him, a muscular, grimy street that plodded for a space on the west side of Manhattan, crashed northward through the Twenties, galloped toward Forty-second, crossed Broadway recklessly, and at Fifty-ninth met the armed front of the park, died. To Mr. McCann it was only an artery that crossed his street. Also, winter was not winter, not the keenness of frost, the tumbling, swirling miracle of the snow, but just the time when he put on his overcoat. Nor did summer mean the blossoming of the boughs to him nor the happy population on the river and the beach, and the little Italians with their ice-cream carts, nor children crooning over great segments of watermelon, but just a time when it was oppressively hot. And great national events only marked points in his life. He would not say, for instance, that he was married about the time of the war with Spain, but that the Maine was sunk about the time he was married.
All his life was under his eyes, like a map one knows perfectly—a rectangular pattern. There were no whorls, no arabesques. There were no delicate shadings, no great purple splash, but precise black and white. There were no gaps he had jumped, to be a mystery in his latter years. All was evident.
He could see himself in his boyhood on the Irish hills, among the plain farmer family he was born of. He could place his father, plain old tiller of the soil, always smoking a clay pipe; his mother, warm-hearted, bustling, a great one for baking bread; his brothers and sisters, honest clods. But he himself seemed to have been born superior, was superior. There was no mystery. It was a fact. He accepted it. And from him his mother accepted it.
And by his mother it was impressed on the whole family that their son and brother Dennis was superior. For him better clothes, easier work, and when he decided that farm life was not for him, no objection was made to the sending of him to college in Cork. But after a couple of years there he had made no progress with studies, and it seemed to him that the studies were not worth while. And he returned home.
They had tried to get a government office for him then, a very small one. But that also required examinations, which he did not seem able to pass. So that a great contempt for books grew up within him. And then he grew convinced that Ireland had not enough opportunity for him. And the family got the money to send him to America.
The years at the college in Cork had intensified his sense of superiority so that when he came to America he felt that the Irish he met there were a very inferior people. And nothing about the city pleased him; everything was much better in Ireland, he decided, and he said Ireland was a wonderful country—the only thing wrong with it was the people. And the queer thing about it was that the Irish in New York agreed with him. His few years at Cork gave them the impression he had accumulated learning, and the race has a medieval respect for books and writing.
"True for you, Mr. McCann, true for you," they would answer his remarks on the inferiority of the Irish Irish. "But what can you expect and the centuries of oppression they have been under?"
"If they had independence enough, there would have been no oppression." "Ay, there 's a lot in what you say, Mr. McCann."
His superiority disarmed them, cowed them. If one of themselves, or a foreigner had uttered the words, I can imagine the rush, the dull thud, the door being taken from its hinges, the mournful procession to the widow's house.
This aloofness, this superiority helped him, or, rather, made him, in the business he had chosen—life-insurance. The wisdom he uttered about life and death to a race who considers life only as the antechamber of eternity impressed his hearers, and they were afraid, too, not to take out policies from this superior, frigid, and evidently authoritative young man.
His superiority also brought him a wife, a timid, warm-hearted girl who brought a tidy sum of money as a fortune, which he spent upon himself.
She was terrified of him and very much in love with him for years. And then the love went and the terror remained. She bore him three children, two sons and a daughter. And in due time she died. But not until life had run pleasantly and respectfully for her husband, for all that he despised it, not as vanity and affliction of spirit but as inferiority and irritation.
And one son died, and a while after her mother's death Moyra, the daughter, ran away, contracting a very inferior marriage with a brakeman on the Pennsylvania Railroad. And the time came when the old man had to retire from the field of insurance, new methods, new companies coming in. The native Irish died of consumption and pneumonia, and the Irish-Americans cared not a tinker's curse for superiority. So his kingdom vanished. And Poles, and French, and Italians, and the folk who came from Palestine by way of Russia, and even Chinese, jostled him. And he was left with a great sense of superiority and a growing sense of futility and one son, "the brilliant Irish-American middle-weight, contender for the world's championship, 'Irish' Mike McCann!"
All that was needed now, the old man felt, to crown a useful and superior life was a material reward. Money he did n't care for—he had all he wanted, decent clothes, a house, tobacco, his three drinks a day; and "The Advocate," an Irish weekly, he read for news of people in Cork, puzzling out this genealogy and that. As, for instance, he would read of a Patrick Murphy fined for drunkenness at Youghal, and he would say: "I wonder now, would that be a son of ould James Murphy of Ballinure. Sure, I would n't put it past him. A damned drunken family they always were." Or a name in litigation would strike him. "Them Hamiltons were always the ones for going to law. A dirty connection!" If a pier or a piece of public property were being builded, his comment was: "I wonder who's getting the money out of that." If a political speech were reported he would sneer: "Yerra, John Redmond and them fellows ought to be ashamed of themselves, and them plundering the people, with their tongue in their cheek." "The Advocate" was a great comfort to him.
He often thought, as he was reading it, of how much he would like to return to Ireland and show the ignorant the fruits of a superior life led in hard work and wisdom. But for that he would have to show something tangible—even money would not be enough, so queer those people were. To impress them at all he would have to have a title of some kind: Alderman, or Judge, or Sheriff, "the Honorable Dennis McCann," and to have that he would need to have gone into politics, and that was not a career for him. To succeed there he would have to be able to mix with the common people, drink with them, be hail-fellow-well-met with a crowd of the dirtiest kind of Irish. No, he could never have done that.
No, but his son might have. Sure, why could n't he? Wasn't he reared right among them? And though he came from a superior house, sure, that would only be an advantage. They would look up to him as well as be friends with him. And with the brains he ought to have, considering his father, there was no office in the land for which he could n't be fitted. Surrogate, or mayor, or governor, even! What was to prevent him if he 'd been the sort of child he ought to have been?
And if he had been that, there would have been a monument for the old man. There would have been a justification for his life—not that he felt he needed any, but just to show. And people would have recognized how much the young one owed to the old one. Then he could have gone back to Ireland for a visit; he would n't have stayed there; it was a good country to come from, as he always said. But even the ignorant common people would have given him credit. He could hear them now talking to his son: "Ah, sure, if your Honor's father had had the chances you had, sure it is n't Mayor of New York he 'd be, but President of America." "Yerra, 't is easy to see where you got the brains, my lad. A chip of the ould block." "Dennis McCann's son and him governor of the Empire State. Well, you can thank God for your father, my bould boyo."
There would have been an evidence for him, an evidence he was entitled to.
And look you the dirty trick had been played on him. Instead of the son who would crown his gray hairs with honor, who would justify him, he was father to a common prize-fighter, a man who was not looked on with respect by any. The idol, perhaps, of the New York Irish, but of the ignorant Irish. True, he was a good boy; he didn't drink. But neither did his father except in reason. He was generous with his money, but, after all, what was money? Always smiling, always laughing. "Sonny" they called him and "Irish"; that was no way to attain dignity. Even the Italian coal-ice-and-wood man called him "Irish." The old man would like to see any one call himself "Irish."
And he could n't listen to any reason. The old man had an opening for him in business up-town. A friend of his, an undertaker, a very superior man, who only did the best kind of trade, had offered young Michael a chance. But the prize-fighter had laughed.
"In a way I 'm in that line of business myself. Why change?"
The old man had shaken with rage.
"Get out of my sight, you impertinent pup!"
What were they thinking of him in Ireland at all, at all? Some one, of course, would write home and tell all about it. And if his name, that should be treated with respect, came up, some one would laugh: "Ould Dennis McCann! Ah, sure, what's he, anyway? Sure, his son's only a common fighter."
He could never get away from it; was never let get away from it. Why, even to-night now, not a half-mile away at Madison Square Garden, Michael was fighting. And a great fuss they were making about it, too. Some Italian he was fighting, and if he won he was to get a fight with the champion. He 'd probably win—he always did—and beat the champion, too. And the end of it would be the honorable name would be dragged more through the dirt of the newspapers.
"I wonder will he forget to bring home 'The Advocate,'" the old man thought. "He 'd better not."
Before the bell had gone for the first round, before the referee had called them together for instructions, before even the gloves were laced on him, "Irish" knew he was a beaten man.
Below him—he could see from his corner of the ring—the great garden was packed, a yellowish gray foam of faces above the dark liquid of bodies. Above those the galleries were great ovals lined with faces. And here and there were little tendrils of smoke. And the red caps of attendants. And occasionally the flash of metal buttons as police and firemen hovered in the aisles.
And at the shelf around the ringside reporters with their pencils and paper, and telegraphers with their clicking instruments. The timekeeper, fingering watch and gong. In another corner of the ring the thin, lugubrious referee—himself once a famous lightweight. And everywhere lights, that in a minute or so would go out, and there would be only a great blue one over the ring. And over the house was the rippling hush that at any instant would burst into a great volume of cheers; a deep roar as of gunnery.
Across the ring, in his corner, the Italian middle-weight lolled, chatting with his seconds. Irish could occasionally glimpse the olive body; the dark hair and eyes; the even, grim face, unmarked save for the marred left ear and the minute flattening of the nose.
"... between the leading contenders of the world's middleweight championship, Nick Chip [so they had Americanized Niccolo Chiapetta] of Buffalo, and Irish Mike McCann...." and the sentence was lost in the roar of the Garden.
As he came to the center of the ring for the referee's instructions, to hear the interpretation of the rules of hitting while holding and about what was and what was not a clinch, he studied the alert, smiling Italian. Yes, Chip was far and away the best man he had ever met; too good for him, much too good. If he had only waited a year, waited six months, even; five or six months more of stiff, good fighting and he could have taken the Italian easily. A little more experience and a little more confidence if he could only have waited.
But he could n't wait; he could n't afford to. Neither he nor the old man could afford to.
They shook hands and returned to their corners. The whistle blew, ordering the seconds out.
"Don't box him, Irish. Stay with him. Get in close, and when you get him open, bam! See, just bam!" Old Maher, his trainer, whispered as he ducked out. "See, no fancy stuff. Just sock him. How are you feeling, Irish?"
"Fine."
"At 'a baby!"
Bong-g-h! He turned and walked to the center of the ring.
The Italian had dropped into his usual unorthodox pose. His open right glove fiddling gently at the air, his left arm crooked, the glove resting against his left thigh. He moved around the ring gently, like a good woman dancer. About him was an immense economy of movement. He seemed wide open—a mark for any boxer's left hand. But Irish knew better. The Latin would sway back from the punch and counter like lightning. The old champion was wise to lie low and not to fight this man until he was compelled to.
If he could only spar him into a corner and rush him there, taking the punches on the chance of smashing him on the ropes.... But the Italian glided around like a ghost. He might have been some sort of a wraith for shadow-boxing, except for the confident, concentrated eyes.
A minute's fiddling, shifting of position, light sparring. The creaking of the boards the shuff-shuff-shuff of feet.
"Ah, why don't you walk in and kill him, Irish? He's only a Guinea!" came a voice from the gallery.
"He 's a yellow. He 's a yellow, da Irish," an Italian supporter jeered.
"Irish" could wait no longer. He feinted with his left, feinted again. The left shot out, missed the jaw, came home high on the head. The right missed the ribs and crashed on the Latin's back. A punch jarred Irish on the jaw. An uppercut ripped home under his heart. At close quarters the Italian was slippery as an eel. The garden roared delight at the Irish lad's punches, but Irish knew they were not effective. And the Italian had hurt him; slightly, but hurt him.
A spar, another pawing rush; light, smart blows on the ropes. "Break! break!" the cry of the referee. Creaking of ropes and whining of boards. A patter of applause as the round came to an end. A chatter of voices as the light went up. The clicking of telegraph instruments.
"At 'a boy! Keep after him," Maher greeted.
As he sat down in his corner Irish was grim. Yes, the Italian was too good for him; he had been afraid of this: that the Italian would outgeneral him into attacking all the time. A little more experience, the fights that mean a hundred times the theory, and he would have lain back and forced Chip to stand up and face him instead of sniping him on the run. The confidence of six or seven more fights and it would n't have mattered to him what the gallery was shouting, what the ringside thought. He could have made Chip stand up and fight, and in a round or so the Garden would have been with him.
If he had only had a little more experience—if only he had been able to wait!
Ah, well, what was the use of grousing! He was here to fight.
"Can't you rough him up a little in the clinch, Irish?" Maher whispered.
"No, I 'll fight him fair."
"Just a little to get his goat."
"No."
The lights went out, leaving only the great glare of the ring. The whistle blew; clatter of buckets and bottles. The seconds clambered down. The gong clashed shudderingly. The second round.
He walked slowly forward over the white canvas under the bluish white arc-light, to meet his man, and then suddenly from his walk he jumped, as some jungle thing might jump. He jumped without setting, without any boxer's poise. Right for the poised, alive body he jumped. And his hands hooked for drive and uppercut. He could feel the sense of shock as they both went home, but to unvital points. The left hand thudded on the neck. The right crashed on the Italian's left arm. He was in close now, driving short lefts and rights to the body, but he was handling something that bent and sprang back like a whalebone, that moved, swayed with suppleness like some Spanish or Argentine dancer, and soon elbows locked his arms subtly, and he could do nothing.
"Come on, break!" The referee was trotting about the ring like a working terrier. Peering, moving from right to left. "Break! Break!" His voice had the peculiar whine of a dog on a scent.
He stood back, sparred a moment. Again Irish rushed. He felt on either side of his face sharp pains as of slaps with the open hand on the cheeks. Irritating things. He could feel the Latin shake as the left hand caught him flush on the ear. A tattoo like taps of little hammers played at his body. Irish's right glove came full into the Italian's ribs. He could feel the rush of air through the Italian's teeth. He brought the hand up with a short chop on the Italian's neck. A scuffle; a semi-wrestle. And again his arms were locked.
"Come on, boys! Come on! Break quick!"
They stood apart, sparred. Irish feinted with the left hand. Feinted with the right. Changed feet quickly, right foot foremost now. Pivoted home with the left hand—Joe Walcott's punch. The Italian side-stepped, and caught him on the ear as he swung to the ropes. Irish turned quickly. A flurry of gloves. Light lead and counter. Clinch.
"You're good, Nick!"
"Y 'ain't so bad yourself, Irish."
As the bell finished the round and he walked toward his corner, he was surprised, looking down at himself, to find angry red welts on his body where what he thought was a light tattoo had been beaten....
Yes, he thought between rounds, another little while, another pound of experience, and for all his cunning, his generalship, he could have beaten Nick. And then between him and the championship there would have been only the champion, and the old champion's day was past. He was getting fat, and satisfied, and drinking—and that was bad! And going around the country to Boston and New Orleans and Seattle, beating third-raters and then mainly on points, and lying low, very low indeed, whenever Nick Chip's name was mentioned, or even his, Irish Mike McCann's. Only another six months and he could have taken on the men the champion had beaten: Paul Kennedy of Pittsburgh, and the clever Jewish lad who went by the Irish name of Al Murphy—that fight would have taught him a lot—and the Alabama Kid, the hunched Negro middle-weight who hit like a flail, and Chicago Johnny Kelly—who fought with his right hand first, a hard lad to reach, but he could have beaten him. Could have beaten them all.
He wanted to be champion—knew he could be, with time and experience. And what there was for him in the championship was not personal glory and not money, but a strange pride of ease that was hard to explain. All he could do well was this athletic feat of fighting with gloves. There was intuition, a sort of gift. His body balanced right. His left hand moved easily. His right was always in position. All his fights he had won easily. But he had never been up against any one as good as this Italian veteran.
It seemed to him only right that an Irishman—or an Irish-American, which was better still—should hold the middle-weight and heavy-weight championships. Fighting—clean, hard struggle—was the destiny apportioned to them. He knew enough of the history of his race to remember they had fought under every banner in Europe—the Irish Brigade at Fontenoy, and the men who were in the Pope's Zouaves, and Russia and Germany knew them, and the great regiments the English had, Munsters and Leinsters and Enniskillen Dragoons, and in New York was the beloved Sixty-ninth, the Fighting Sixty-ninth.
Vaguely in his mind there were thoughts which he could not translate into words, it not being his craft, that there was some connection between the men who fought in a padded ring with gloves and the men who went gallantly into battle with two flags above their heads, the flag they served faithfully and the little wisp of green they loved. The men in the ring stood for the green in the field, perhaps. And we should see in the Irish boxer what the cheering ranks of Irish going into battle were. Fight squarely in the ring, fight gallantly, fight to the last drop, and win gallantly and lose gallantly. And let no man say: There is a dirty or mean fighter. And let no man say: There is a coward.
There were Irish names in the ring that made old men's hearts flutter and young men wish they had been born years before. Old John L. Sullivan (God rest the gallant battered bones!) and Tom Sharkey of Dundalk, who never knew when he was beaten, and old Peter Maher, who was somewhere in the house. And there was another name in the mist of past days, the name of a middle-weight champion who had been greatest and most gallant of them all, the elder Jack Dempsey, the Non-pareil. None like him, none! Irish of the Irish, most gallant of them all, he sleeps in a green grave in the West somewhere, and in all men's hearts.
And Irish had thought humbly to fill the Non-pareil's shoes, to fight as hard as he fought, to win as chivalrously, to lose as well, and in his corner as he fought the ghost of the great Nonpareil would be. And the roar of the house as he would walk out at the referee's call, the champion, Irish-American, in his tights of green, and around his waist the starry Western flag.
Ah, well!
The shrill cut of the whistle, and the chief second leaned forward and wiped his face.
"Fift' round, Irish. Keep at him, boy!"
The gong, and the hushed house.
He noticed now that the Italian fighter was no longer resting his left hand semi-casually on his hip, kept up no longer his poise of an Argentine dancer. The Buffalo man's left hand was extended like an iron bar, his shoulder hunched to his jaw for a shield, his head sunk low, as a turtle's head is half-drawn under its carapace; his feet well apart. The man's oily black hair was a tangled mop, and on his ribs were red blotches. His lips were set in a wide line. His black, ophidian eyes snapped and glowed. His poised right hand flickered like a snake's tongue.
And he was punching, punching as hard as he could, hitting squarely with knuckles and every ounce of weight—careless of the economy of the ring that tells a man to save his hands, for a boxer's hands are a boxer's life, and every hurt sinew, every broken knuckle, every jarred delicate bone counts in the long run. The Italian was hitting, hitting like a trip-hammer, hitting for his title.
They faced each other, the Italian poised, drawn like a bowstring, aiming like a sharpshooter, Irish, jigging on his toes, careless of guarding, feinting with the right hand, breaking ground, feinting with the left, feinting with the right again, and then a sudden plunging rush. The jar to his neck as the Italian's straight left caught him flush on the mouth, the whirling crash of infighting, the wrestling clinch. No longer the referee called, "Break! break!" but tore at them with hysterical hands. A tacit understanding grew between them to protect at all times, and as they drew apart they hooked and uppercutted, Irish with an insane mood of fighting, the Italian with a quick deliberation: Snap! Snap! the punches.
Patter of feet, and creak of the boards, and little whine of the ropes. The great blue light overhead, the click of the telegraph instruments below. The running feet of the referee and the nervous patting of his hands, clop! clop! The seconds with their eyes glued on the fighting men, and their hands sparring in sympathy. The mooing roar of the crowd and their louder tense silence. And the regular gong, the short respite, hardly a second it seemed, though the interval was a minute—and the gong again.
Once they were so carried away they paid no attention to it, but fought on. Only the referee parted them. Irish held out his glove in apology and they shook hands. The garden seemed to shake to the cheering.
Whip of lead in the tenth round, crash of counter, deep sock of infighting. Clinch; break. A half-second's inattention on the Italian's part, and the left hand of Irish crashed home to the jaw.
Himself did not understand what had happened until he noticed the crumpled figure on the boards and heard the referee:
"Get back, McCann. Get back! ... One! ... two..." An immense hysteria of sound filled the house. Men jumped on seats. The telegraph instruments clattered madly. Somewhere near the ring was a fist fight.
"Three!"
The crumpled figure twitched. At four it was dragging itself to its hands. The glazed eyes blinked. Life returned. The Italian shook his head. At seven he was on his hands and knees, his head clearing. At eight he was kneeling on one knee, one glove resting on boards. God! how long the seconds were, Irish thought.
"Nine!" Slowly the Italian rose.
The Garden was no longer filled with human beings but with instruments of baritone sound. It hit the roof, rebounded, whirled, surged. All about Irish was sound, sound. In front of him the Italian weak at the knees. The referee hunched like a bowler. Irish jumped in, fists swinging. His fists met crossed arms, elbows, shoulders, but not jaw or head. And suddenly the Italian was clinging to him, as a terrified cat will cling—he could n't tear himself loose. It took the referee and him to tear the Italian away.
Insane with the din, blind with excitement, he rushed again to meet the beautiful diagonal coverup, left arm across heart and plexus, right crooked about throat and jaw. Again the clinging of the cat. And he felt the Italian growing stronger. It was like a dead man coming to life again. Life was flowing slowly back to shoulders, from shoulders to arms and hands, to hips and knees.
He stood back to consider this miracle, to think what to do next. Two shaking lefts caught him in the face.
And the gong rang and his chance was gone.
Yes another six months and he could have won. He would have known how to keep his head, how to finish the Italian crisply. He had him out, out clean. Another punch would have finished it. And he had n't experience enough—another six months.
Well, what was the use of grousing! It could n't be helped. He could n't pass the fight up when it was offered to him. Right at home, and so much money.
The money had been needed for the home and the old man. It was funny how much a home cost even on Twenty-fourth Street, and the old man was used to a certain way of living. He liked to have a cook, and a girl to do the work around the house. That was the way it was in Ireland. And the old man needed his decent clothes and his spending money for his little drink and his tobacco and papers, and things like that. He couldn't very well put the old man in lodgings. He wasn't accustomed to that. He wanted his home and the cook and girl. He always was accustomed to it, and why should n't he have it?
But a house took an awful lot of money. For what the house cost he and the old man could have stayed at a swell hotel. But the old man liked to be by himself. You could n't blame him; the old man was entitled to a home. He was a queer, crusty sort, the old man. No harm in him, you know, but just could n't get on.
And for all that people thought, a boxer's money was n't easy. A middle-weight did n't get the money light-weights and heavy-weights got. If he 'd won the championship—ah, that was all right! Let it go! But when you split fifty-fifty with your manager, there was only half of what you fought for; and there was expenses, too. You had to travel a lot, and be nice to people, too. You had to spend a lot in saloons, though you never drank yourself. Keep your end up with the crowd. And there was always old fighters out of luck, and some of them had families, too. You could n't refuse them even if you 'd wanted to. And who 's going to help out a fighter except a fighter? And there was always a lot of poor folks.
It seemed a pity, even for the money end, not to have waited. If he 'd waited he 'd have had the championship, and then he 'd have been fixed for life.
If his old man had been a different kind of old man he 'd have gone to him and said: "Hey, old timer, how about going easy on the jack for a while, hey? Just lay off a bit until I get things right. Gi' me another half-dozen fights under my belt, see, and I 'll drop this Guinea cold. And then the champion 'll have to give me a fight—the papers 'll make him, and you know what he is. He 's a bum. So what do you say we get us a couple o' rooms, hey, and go easy for a while? What do you say?"
A different kind of old man would have said: "Sure. We 'll take our time, and we 'll knock this Guinea for a row of jam-jars. And as for the champion, it's a cinch."
But he was n't that kind of old man. He did n't hold with this fighting, nohow. He had no use for it. And he was n't the kind of old guy you could talk to. Irish thought he must have had a hard time in his life.
Ah, well; he was entitled to a good time now. Let him have his own way. Irish could always make money. It did n't matter so much, after all, did it? The only thing that hurt him was that he would never draw the Stars and Stripes through the green Irish tights....
And he could have, if he 'd had only six months.
Irish was aware now as he answered the bell that his bolt was shot. The high pitch of concentration had gone. With the dropping of the Italian, and the Italian's escape, he had reached the high point of his fighting, and now must go down. His punch would be heavy still, but it would lack the terrific speed, the speed of shock, that carries a knock-out. And the effect of the cumulation of blows from the Italian sharpshooter was beginning to tell. Through the bruises on his body and neck and the puffiness of his face, energy was flowing out of him like water from some pierced vessel. The stinging lefts to his face had made it hard for him to breathe, and his hands were swollen inside his gloves, and all of a sudden his legs were tired.
Into ten rounds of whirlwind fighting he had foolishly put everything, gambled energy and hands and brain.
And he sensed with a great sinking of his heart that Chip was drawing ahead of him now, drawing away from him in the contest, with the inevitableness of the winner drawing away from the beaten man, forging ahead while the other plods hopelessly on.... With the quick telepathy of the ring the Italian knew Irish had cracked, that he was gone. And now the energy he had saved by making his man come to him he could use, he must use. For that knock-down in the tenth was a high score of points against him. And he was afraid of a draw. He would have to fight Irish again. Not again! He must knock him out.
He met the futile rushes with stinging lefts. At close quarters he ripped home his hands mercilessly. As they drew apart he stalked his man. Smack! Smack! It was no hard matter to avoid the rushing of Irish. God! what a glutton Irish was! What he could take without going down!
Mechanically, stolidly, dully, Irish boxed. All about him now was the hoarse murmur of speculation, and the din of it dazed him a little, and the light. And from a cut in his forehead the blood was running into his eyes.
Four times the gong crashed, the end and opening of a round, and the end and opening of another round. Dully he went to his corner. The splash of water in his face did not revive him, nor the current from the whipping towels, nor the slapping of his legs.
"Don't let him knock you out, Irish. Hold him. Only two more rounds. Don't let him knock you out." Maher's fierce whisper hit at his ear-drums. So it was as bad as that, hey?
"Hold on to him, kid. Don't fight him. Hold him."
The bell rang. They pushed him to his seat. Wearily he moved toward the center of the ring.
"Look out!" some one called.
The Italian had sprung from his corner with the spring of a cat. And Irish felt surprisedly that he had been struck with two terrific hammers on the jaw. And as he wondered who had hit him his knees buckled surprisingly, and he was on his hands and knees on the floor.
And he heard some one say: "... three ... four..." He struggled to his feet. Somewhere Maher was shouting. "Take the count, Irish." Irish dully wondered what he meant.
And now Chip was in front of him, concentrated, poised. And once more the hammer crashed on the jaw. And he tumbled to the boards on his side.
He was very dull, very dazed. For a while he knew nothing. And then he understood; the referee pumping his hand up and down, and the roar of the crowd.
"Eight!"
As he moved he felt the ropes, and blindly he groped for them, pulling himself to his feet somehow. About him the din surged. The referee stepped back. The Italian was pawing at the referee's arm, protesting. Irish understood. Chip wanted the fight stopped, did n't want to hit him any more. Ah, he was a good kid, Chip was.
And then the ring slithered underneath him; the hand grasping the rope grew lifeless, let go; and the lights went out for him; and Irish crashed forward on his face.
The old man looked at the battered face above the blue serge suit.
"Well," he said, "it must have been a grand fight entirely!"
"It was a great fight," Irish grinned, "and a good man won."
"Meaning yourself?"
"No, meaning the Guinea."
"So you were beat, eh?" the old man jeered. "I never thought you were much good at it."
"Ah, I don't know." And Irish grinned again.
"Tell me," the old man snapped, "did you bring me 'The Advocate'?"
"I did." And Irish handed it over.
"'T is a wonder you remembered it," the old man snarled. "And the fine lacing you 're after taking!"
And Irish grinned again. Wasn't he a queer, grumpy old man!