“Can I trouble you for a light?”
“No trouble at all,” comes the cheerful answer, and a glowing perfecto, which cost not less than thirty-five cents, is handed over.
That miscellaneous crowd is welded into one solid mass by the masonry of sport, even though individual opinions are retained, and the opinion of a seasoned ring-goer is set hard and deep as the rock of Gibraltar.
The smoke is wafted back and forth like the tidal currents of the sea and the exertions of a hundred devotees of nicotine are adding to it every moment. An interminable buzz of voices fills the big room, and there is fight in the very air.
“I tell you the old man could lick O’Brien any day he wanted to; he’s got the punch and he can stand the gaff, ain’t that enough?” This in a strident voice from the cheaper seats, and it was answered at once by an argument that was apparently deemed irrefutable:
“Why didn’t he do it?”
Near the door is a fight bug whom no one ever heard of, and who is interesting simply because he is a freak. He is voluble, emphatic and vainglorious.
“I kin beat Britt an’ he knows it, an’ dat’s the reason he won’t give me a chanst. He’d be a pipe fer me, ‘cos I’d infight him, an’ he couldn’t stand my body punchin’. Dere’s where I’m great—on dose body blows. I challenged him three times an’ he never paid no attention to me. He’s afraid uv me, dat’s what he is. I kin beat ’em all if dey’ll only cum to me.”
“You couldn’t beat a carpet,” shouts a wit, and the bug is temporarily squelched.
The noise of the voices is suddenly emphasized—the first pair are coming and the show is on. Into the ring they climb from opposite corners, principals and seconds, and then, more leisurely, as befits the dignity of his exalted position, comes the announcer. They all have the same speech, which has been doing duty for generations, and this one is no different from the rest: