"Johnson's right upper-cut is described as the piston of an ocean greyhound making twenty-seven knots," said the man, taking no notice of the answer, and speaking in awestruck tones. "Do you know, one paper describes Johnson as the best piece of fighting machinery the world has ever seen!"
"I thought that was the last Dreadnought?" said Mr. Clarkson.
"Perhaps you don't study the literature of the Ring," the other answered, with cold superiority.
"Oh, indeed I do!" cried Mr. Clarkson eagerly. "It is rather remarkable what a fascination the art of boxing has frequently exercised upon the masters of literature. Even the Greeks, in spite of their artistic reverence for the human body, practised boxing with extreme severity, and on their statues, you know, we sometimes find a recognised distortion which they called 'the boxer's ear.' It seems to show that they hit round rather than straight from the shoulder. The ancient boxing-gloves were intended, not to diminish, but to increase the severity of the blow, being made of seven or eight strands of cow-hide, heavily weighted with iron and lead. There is that fine description of a prize-fight in Virgil, where the veteran—'the imperturbable colossus' of his time, I suppose we may call him—almost knocks the life out of the younger man, and sends him from the contest swinging his head to and fro, and spitting out teeth mingled with blood—rather a horrible picture!"
"Ten to six on the boiler-maker," said the cabman; "I'll take ten to six."
"And then, of course," Mr. Clarkson continued, "in recent times there are splendid accounts of the fights in Lavengro and Meredith's Amazing Marriage, and Browning once refers to the Tipton Slasher, and we all know Conan Doyle."
"No, we don't," said the cabman.
"It seems rather hard to explain the attraction of prize-fighting," Mr. Clarkson went on, meditatively; "perhaps it comes simply from the dramatic element of battle. It is a war in brief, a concentrated militancy. Or perhaps it is the more barbaric delight in vicarious pain and endurance; and I think sometimes we ought to include the pleasure of our race in fair play and the just and equal rigour of the game."
What other reasons Mr. Clarkson might have found were lost in the yelling of newsboys tearing down the Strand. Too excited to speak, the crowd engulfed them. The papers were torn from their hands. Short cries, short sentences followed. Here and there Mr. Clarkson caught an intelligible word: "Revolvers taken at gate"; "Expected Johnson would be shot if victorious"; "Opening spar almost academic in its calmness"; "Old wound on Jeffries's right eye opened"; "Both cheeks gashed to the bone"; "Jack handed out some wicked lefts"; "Terrible gruelling"; "Both shutters out of working order"; "Defeat certain after eighth round"; "Johnson hooked his left"; "The Circassian remained on his knees"; "Counting went on"; "Fatal ten was reached."
The crowd gasped. Then it shouted, it swore, it broke up swearing.