"Huh?" Johnson Boller said.
"The chance for that fatal uppercut is there—it was there a minute ago and it will be there a minute hence, and probably two minutes hence. Our Tornado hasn't seen it yet; he may go to the end of the ten rounds and never see it, and yet, unless this Horrigan chap changes his tactics, it will be repeated again and again. Would he see it if the bout ran twenty rounds?"
"How the dickens should I know?" Johnson Boller muttered.
"I'd be quite willing to wager," Anthony smiled thoughtfully, "that he would see it!"
Johnson Boller surveyed his friend narrowly. It was obvious that Anthony's attention had strayed from the alleged battle—and small wonder! It was equally obvious that Anthony's mind was wandering off into the abstract; and not infrequently these little journeys—provided they went not too far—were quite entertaining.
Johnson Boller, therefore, with an impulse he was to regret bitterly in the very near future, gave a prod to discussion by smiling in his own unhappy way and saying:
"What's the idea, Anthony? You're wrong, but—what is it?"
"My idea," said the proprietor of Fry's Imperial Liniment slowly, "is merely this, Johnson: that the whole proposition of the man who is a dire failure, the man who is a tremendous success, is vastly exaggerated."
"Meaning?"
"That failure does not of necessity imply incapacity or ineptitude—or success any tremendous capability, in many cases, for that matter. Taken by and large, we are all made of much the same stuff, you know. The trouble lies in the failure of the plain, average, reasonably stupid citizen to recognize opportunity's one solitary knock!" Anthony smiled, growing himself more interested by the second. "Now, if opportunity were but decent enough to knock twice, at least double the number of striving humans would recognize her nearness and grasp her. If she could bring herself to knock three times, say, our successes would be tripled. If——"