"What! And after that he runs up agin Juddy to save Jim fro' a hidin'! Why, if Ah'd been him, Ah'd hev seen Jim cold as frozen mutton fust."
"Nay, that's soöart o' thing they do in them big schules, tha knows. 'Code of honour' they calls it, Ah'm telled. Of all the daft ideas—hey, sitha," he broke off, "what a sissup Juddy's just given him!"
"Sitha, what a sissup" was the yokel's way of announcing to those behind him that their champion had at last "got home" with that vicious right hand of his. An exultant cheer marked the success. Dick spun round with the jarring shock, and in that helplessly sick moment he would have fallen an easy prey to Juddy's next blow but for a lucky chance. Dick slipped on the snow of the improvised prize-ring, worn glassy by now, and thereby escaped the full force of his opponent's second drive. As it was, blood flowed from a cut on his cheek, which Chuck Smithies had difficulty in stanching.
"Didn't I warn you not to let him hit you?" he grumbled. "One more swipe on the napper like that, and you'll be dreaming of home and mother, sonny."
"I'm not so particular what happens," gasped Dick, in his giddy agony. "Can't stop rotting about here all afternoon."
He was dimly conscious that Chuck Smithies was breathing fire and brimstone into his ear as he rose to face the next round. He was quite too badly shaken for the time being, to realize that his triumph-flushed opponent was blowing like the bellows of a blacksmith's shop.
Juddy was no pierrot, and the unaccustomed prancing he had done before "clumpin' t'schule-kid's chump" had almost emptied his lungs of ozone. Greatly to the chagrin of his supporters, he seemed quite unable to break again through Dick's somewhat groggy guard.
"Oh, Juddy, lad," they passionately pleaded, "dew slap it across him. He nobbut needs a push—why, tha could blow him o'er!"
Which was precisely what Juddy could not do. He could scarcely have cooled his porridge with the breath that was left in him just then. Still, there was no reduction in the carthorse strength of his muscles, as the bruises on Dick's protective arms could have testified. Both of them came out of that round with diminished glory, and the referee cast anxious glances back at his neglected public-house, darkly hinting at a draw "if things don't buck up quick".
"They're pumped, both of 'em," observed a candid critic. "You could wring 'em out like a couple o' dishcloths. What a frost!"