The runner wished to know what he was looking for. Being told golf balls, he demanded "What for?" It seemed never to have occurred to him that there would be an object in looking for golf balls. He curiously handled and weighed a ball in his brown and hairy hand.
"So that's the little joker, is it? I often seen 'em knockin' up flies with it, but I ain't never been close to one. Say, that pill could hurt you if it come right!"
He was instructed briefly in the capacity of moving balls to inflict pain, and more particularly as to their market value. As the boy talked the sweating man looked him over with shrewd, half-shut eyes.
"Ever had the gloves on, kid?" he demanded at last.
It appeared in a moment that he meant boxing gloves; not gloves in which to play golf.
"No, sir," said Wilbur.
"You look good. Come down to the store at three o'clock. Mebbe you can give me a work-out."
Quite astonishingly it appeared then that when he said the store he was meaning the low saloon of Pegleg McCarron; that he did road work every morning and wanted quick young lads to give him a work-out with the gloves in the afternoon, because even dubs was better than shadow boxing or just punching the bag all the time. If they couldn't box-fight they could wrestle.
So Wilbur had gone to the store that afternoon, and for many succeeding afternoons, to learn the fascinating new game in a shed that served McCarron as storeroom. The new hero had here certain paraphernalia of his delightful calling—a punching bag, small dumb-bells, a skipping rope, boxing gloves. Here the neophyte had been taught the niceties of feint and guard and lead, of the right cross, the uppercut, the straight left, to duck, to side-step, to shift lightly on his feet, to stop protruding his jaw in cordial invitation, to keep his stomach covered. He proved attentive and willing and quick. He was soon chewing gum as Spike Brennon chewed it, and had his hair clipped in Brennon manner. He lived his days and his nights in dreams of delivering or evading blows. Often while dressing of a morning he would stop to punish an invisible opponent, doing an elaborate dance the while. It was better than linotypes or motor busses.
In the early days of this new study he had been fearful of hurting Spike Brennon. He felt that his blows were too powerful, especially that from the right fist when it should curve over Spike's left shoulder to stop on his jaw. But he learned that when his glove reached the right place Spike's jaw had for some time not been there. Spike scorned his efforts.