"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.