"The prize ring is not what you're being trained for, my young friend," I said with some asperity.
"What then?" he asked.
"First of all I hope I'm training you to be a gentleman. And that means—"
"Can't a boxer be a gentleman?" he broke in quickly.
"He might be, I suppose, but he usually isn't." He was forcing me into an attitude of priggishness which I regretted.
"Then why," he persisted, "are you having me taught to box?"
"Chiefly to make your muscles hard, to inure you to pain, to teach you self-reliance."
"But I oughtn't to learn to box then, if it's going to keep me from being a gentleman. What is a gentleman, Roger?"
I tried to think of a succinct generalization and failed, falling back instinctively upon safe ground.
"Christ was a gentleman, Jerry," I said quietly.