He knew the house was roaring—was sure of it—and yet he couldn't hear them at all. And that was strange, because he could hear the referee; he could hear Jack English. Jack was pleading—good old Jack!—begging him to get up. Apparently Jack didn't know that the roof had come down and stopped the fight. But the referee? Would he toll on endlessly before he noticed it? He should know; he'd been close at hand when it happened. He felt a warm emotion, a sense of comradeship, for the referee. He'd surely been square; he'd made Holliday break clean. He felt an impulse to joke with the referee, to banter him, and bid him count a million if he wanted to.
And then another thought. How easily he was thinking! With what precision! Yellow! They might think him yellow, even if the roof had fallen, if he didn't get up. They might think—At that he rolled over and discovered that there were miles of bodiless space between his head and his feet. It made the latter hard to handle, but he managed it doggedly. He climbed to his knees and wavered erect. And on the stroke of ten Holliday smashed him down again.
Yellow? Well, he'd get right up this time. He started to; he even staggered after Holliday who now appeared to be the one who wouldn't stand and fight, when he felt English dragging him back. Even English was against him. Holding his arms! Bound he'd lose! He lashed out at English; and then, like a distant echo, he remembered the sound of a bell.
He let them put him upon his stool and stretch him out. Let them work over him frantically. The brick from the roof apparently had cut above one eye, almost to the bone. But English was fixing it—good old English! He shouldn't have lost his temper and swung on English like that. English was propping the lid open and sticking it so with adhesive.
And then there was the bell. How light his legs felt, and his arms! And he'd doubted that the adhesive would do much; with the first savage slash Holliday tore it away and the lid hung closed again. But he could see from the other eye even though that seemed but a puffy mass. There was a slit from which he could look out upon an insane, tumultuous world.
So he complimented himself upon his cunning. They thought Holliday had blinded him; had closed both his eyes so that he could not see at all, did they? Well, he could! Oh, he was foolin' 'em. Champion!
Once he'd looked that word up in a dictionary, just after he whipped Fanchette; looked it up a little sheepishly, though he was alone at the time. Champion:—One who by beating all rivals has obtained an acknowledged supremacy. Then Devereau and Dunham were right. According to that he wasn't a champion. Nobody acknowledged him. But he'd teach 'em a better definition. A champion was someone who could go right on fighting when everybody was cheering for the other guy. A champion was somebody who could fool 'em that easy!—that complete! You bet! Who could fight and think at the same time, that clearly!—that logically!—like he was doing.
But he fell down often. Yet that didn't prevent this reasoning things out. And he didn't wait now for the count, either. He'd get right up each time, he'd decided, so that they could not call him yellow. They hated him so. But he knew the answer to that, too, at last. And that gave him something to laugh at, the way Holliday had grinned. Honesty was the best policy! He fair rocked with glee—and got up again!
Now English had him by the arm. He wouldn't hit English—English meant well if he wasn't a champion. He'd follow English docilely and sit down as he was ordered. He must have missed the bell again.
But English's crying, his whimpering, bothered him. It was a sniffling, wild-beast whine. That's the way a wolf or a tiger would sound, outside the circle of a fire's glow, unable to help its kitten or cub. But it annoyed him just the same—took his mind off important things. And what had English to cry over anyway? The roof hadn't fallen on him.