It maddened Devereau again. Just when he was beginning to congratulate himself that his work was good.
"You can't lick him," he choked. "You couldn't lick him even if he was handcuffed and shackled to a ball and chain." He tossed aloft his arms.
"Champion! You, champion! Oh, my Gawd!"
He strode across the room. But he came back swiftly to the boy who had not moved in his chair.
"Get this now!" he barked. He was done with talk. Done with argument.
"Get this, because when I'm finished this time, I'm through. I've got my coin in this thing and so has Dunham. And we're going to drag down what we put in with a little something for interest. We're going to get ours, and then you can fight Montague and be damned—or Holliday. You can go throw your nice new title into the gutter as soon as you please, for all of me, and try being first prize sucker of the world for a change. But first I get mine. How I hate a fool!"
"You're fighting Hughie Gay a week from Saturday. All right. Hughie's a set-up. I saw to that. You can pick 'em yourself hereafter. But right now your orders is to let Hughie stay the distance. A week from Saturday. Is that clear? Have you got that—sure?"
Blair sat silent. It is strange how silence will fool a man like Devereau. He made one last try for peace.
"And if you behave; if you're a good boy maybe we're going to forget we had this little misunderstanding. There's others besides Hughie just as soft. But if you're dead set on finding out who is boss; if you want to know whether you're Dunham's man or not, why just cross them orders. Pig-iron's got ten thousand on that fight—ten thousand that you don't win by a knock-out, if you win at all. And if you cost him that ten—Well, just dump it, if you want to see!"
"I fight on the level," said Perry, "or I don't fight at all."