“He’ll find that out soon enough, I’m thinking,” growled Tom’s big opponent.
This was no doubt true. Ben Miller was not only stouter and larger, but stronger than our hero. On the other hand he didn’t know how to use his strength. It was undisciplined brute force, and that was all. If he could have got Tom by his waist the latter would have been completely at his mercy, but our hero knew that well enough, and didn’t choose to allow it. He was a pretty fair boxer, and stood on his defense, calm and wary.
When Ben rushed in, thinking to seize him, he found himself greeted with two blows on the face, dealt in quick succession, one of which struck him on the nose, the other in the eye, the effect of both being to make his head spin.
“I’ll mash you for that,” he yelled in a frenzy of rage, but as he rushed on a second time he never thought of guarding his face. The consequence was a couple more blows, the other eye being assailed this time.
Ben was astonished. Indeed, I may well say he was astounded. He expected to “chaw up” his small antagonist at the first outset. Instead of that, there stood Tom cool and unhurt, while he could feel that his nose was bleeding, while both eyes were in a very uncomfortable condition. He stopped short and stared at Tom as well as he could through his injured optics.
“Where did you learn to fight?” he asked, rubbing his wounds.
“Of Professor Thompson,” said Tom.
“Who’s he?”
“He teaches boxing.”
“How did your fists get so hard?”