But this great day seemed slow, uncertain of approach. Smith would not divulge the genesis of his fowls, nor tell how he came to be possessed of the Esslein chickens. Smith confined himself to the bluff claim:
“I've got 'em, and there they be.”
Beyond this Smith wouldn't go. On' their parts, the Essleins, at first maintained themselves in silent dignity. They said nothing; treating the Smith claim as beneath contempt.
As man after man, however, went over to the Smith side, the Essleins so far unbent from their pose of tongue-tied hauteur as to call Smith “a liar!”
Still this failed of full effect; the talk went on, the subject was in mighty dispute, and the Essleins at last, to settle discussion, defied Smith to a main.
But Smith refused to fight his chickens against the Essleins. Smith said it was conscience, but failed to go into details. This was damaging. Meanwhile, however, as Smith challenged the world of fighting cocks, and, moreover, won every match he ever made, and barred only the Essleins in his campaigning, there arose, in spite of his steady objection to fighting the Essleins, many who believed Smith and stood forth for it that Smith did have the far-famed “Esslein Games.” It is to the credit of the Essleins that they did all that was in their power to bring Smith and his chickens to the battlefield. They offered him every inducement known in chicken war, and tendered him a duel for his cocks to be fought for anything from love to money.
Firm to the last, Smith wouldn't have it; and so, discouraged, the Essleins, failing action, nailed as it were their gauntlet to Smith's hen-coop door, and thus the business stood for months.
It came about one day that a stranger from Baltimore accepted Smith's standing challenge to fight anybody save the Essleins. The stranger proposed and made a match with Smith to fight him nine battles, $500 on each couple and $2,500 on the general main. And then the news went 'round.
There was high excitement in chicken circles. The day came and the sides of the pit were crowded. Smith was in his corner with his handler, getting the first of his champions ready for the struggle. As Smith was holding the chicken for the handler to fasten on the gaffs—drop-socket, they were, and keen as little scimetars—he chanced to glance across the pit.
There stood John, chief of the Essleins.