“I’ll have to think about this,” Johnny said, with such calmness that Nan felt somewhat reassured, though Bessy was inwardly afraid. “I’m going out for an hour.”
He strode away to the Institute, walking by instinct, and seeing nothing till he was under the lettered lamp. He went to the dressing-room and hurried into his flannels. In the gymnasium the instructor, a brawny sergeant of grenadiers, was watching some lads on the horizontal bar. Johnny approached him with a hesitating request for a “free spar.”
“Free spar, my lad?” said the sergeant. “What’s up? Gettin’ cheeky? Want to give me a hidin’?”
“No, sergeant,” Johnny answered. “Not such a fool as that. But I never had a free spar with a man much heavier than myself, and—and I just want to try, that’s all!”
There was a comprehending twinkle about the sergeant’s eyes. “Right,” he said; “you’re givin’ me near two stone—that’s if you’re a bit over eleven. Fetch the gloves.”
At another time Johnny would never have conceived the impudence of asking the sergeant—once champion of the army—for a free spar. Even a “light” spar with the sergeant was something of an undertaking, wherein one was apt to have both hands full, and a bit over. But the lad had his reasons now.
He dashed at the professor with a straight lead, and soon the blows were going like hail on a window-pane. The sergeant stood like a rock, and Johnny’s every rush was beaten back as by hammer-blows on the head. But he came again fresh and eager, and buzzed his master merrily about the head, getting in a very respectable number of straight drives, such as would knock an ordinary man down, though the sergeant never winked; and bringing off one on the “mark” that did knock out a grunt, much as a punch in that region will knock one out of a squeaking doll.
“Steady,” the sergeant called after two long rounds had been sparred. “You’ll get stiff if you keep on at that rate, my lad, and that’s not what you want, I reckon!” This last with a grin. “You haven’t been boxin’ regular you know, just lately.”
“But you’re all right,” he added, as they walked aside. “Your work keeps you in good condition. Not quite so quick as you would ha’ been if you’d been sparrin’ every evening, o’course. But quick enough for your job, I expect.” And again Johnny saw the cunning twinkle.
It was about closing time, and when Johnny had changed his clothes, he found the sergeant leaving also. He thanked him and bade him good-night.