"Hit him hard, an' knock his teeth oot, Juddy," they urged. "Barge cloöase up tiv him!"
Which, being interpreted, meant: "Get close up to him"—excellent counsel, but rather more difficult to follow than they realized.
"Keep on playing him, lad—that's right," whispered Chuck Smithies, encouragingly. "He'll tire first at this game. Has no more idea of boxing than a backwoods-man. But you mustn't let him hit you, mind—he'll knock you sick if he gets one in."
"I wish it were over," said Dick, devoutly. "It's such a farce. There's really so little to fight about."
"Oh, true enough, that village idiot seems to be your evil star," the bookmaker agreed. "Like fighting for a block of wood, sure! But you butted in to save him, sonny, so you've got to stick it out. Buck up! Juddy's coming for you baldheaded this time."
Yes, Juddy was indeed in most desperate earnest on this occasion. With all the vocal support on his side, and a big advantage in weight, he had every inducement to force the fight to an early and successful issue. If, he told himself, he could slam his fist once, just once, into the schoolboy's face—so cool a face it was, too, as it tantalizingly bobbed up and down in front of him—there would be a straight road into the public-house, drinks round at some hero-worshipper's expense, and three cheers for a jolly good fellow. The said "good fellow" being, as a matter of course, Juddy himself.
Dazzled by the prospect of such hero-worship, Juddy made the pace "mustard". Twice his sledge-hammer fist got near enough to sting and redden Dick's ear—another inch to the left and the schoolboy would have gone down like a felled ox. Every artifice in Dick's box-of-tricks had to be brought into play before the termination of that hurricane round. It left him badly in need of his second wind, but unhurt. Moreover it had begun to dawn on a section of the crowd that the swiftness of his movements was not altogether due to funk, and some few amongst them shuffled round to his side of the ring.
"Ahr Juddy ain't hevin' it all his own roöad this journey," observed one elderly farm-hand, puffing thoughtfully at his pipe.
"Noa," his mate agreed. "T'young feller from t'schule seems ter hev some soöart of a game on. Leastways, Juddy canna fetch him one."
"Cos why? Cos t'schule kid's 'wick' on his feet," put in another, wiser than the rest. "He's t'captain o' t'foöitball team, an' it wor him as would ha' scored t'winnin' goal at Walsbridge if Fluffy Jim hedn't spoilt him."