CHAPTER VII
BEN MYATT ADVISES
If, however, Starling Meyer had heard Jimmy’s version of that encounter with Dud, he certainly gave no sign. When he and Dud met, which was frequently now that daily baseball practice was going on in the cage, he either looked over Dud’s head or deigned him a fleeting and disdainful glance. But Dud didn’t feel at all badly because he received no more attention. In fact, he was extremely glad every time he looked at Star and pondered on that youth’s wealth of muscle and length of arm, and he hoped from the bottom of his heart that Star would keep right on treating him with distant disdain—the more distant the better!
Meanwhile Jimmy, being a firm believer in preparedness, had procured two pairs of light-weight boxing gloves from different sources and Dud, much against his inclination, was made to don a pair every day before supper and do his best to master the rudiments of self-defense. I don’t believe, just between you and me, that Jimmy knew a whole lot about boxing, but at least he knew more than his friend did. Dud was the veriest tyro and those first lessons, undertaken by Dud with no relish and one might well say under compulsion, were strange affairs. With the study table drawn back to the length of the green cord connecting droplight and ceiling plug—the droplight met a natural fate during the third lesson—an eight-foot “ring” was secured, and in this, with much thudding of shoes and thumping of gloves, the two feinted and parried and struck. The striking, though, was somewhat one-sided at first, Jimmy being the striker and Dud the strikee, to coin a convenient word. Anyone pausing outside the door of Number 19 might have heard, in spite of the closed transom, a conversation calculated to arouse curiosity.
“Watch your head now!... Well, I warned you, didn’t I?... Keep your right in front of you! Don’t drop your arm like that or.... Now lead! Quick! Oh, put some pep in it, Dud!... More like this; see?... Feint with your right and come up quick with your left straight for my chin!... Get it? Try it again.... That’s better, only you’re too slow. You give it away beforehand. Keep your eyes on mine and don’t look where you’re going to hit.... Sorry, Dud! Was it too hard?... You had your guard down, you see.... Quicker on your feet, old chap! Keep moving! Don’t get set or I’ll.... I just wanted to show you what would happen, Dud. Don’t get mad about it. The only way to learn.... Good one! You got me that time! Right on the nose! Bully work!...”
After some half-dozen lessons Dud began to learn. And Jimmy, having procured a paper-covered book in the village which was entitled “Boxing Self-Taught,” studied it diligently and became more proficient. I doubt that Jimmy, even when at his best, was what might be termed a scientific boxer, and Dud never developed beyond the hammer-and-tongs stage, but they got to fancying themselves quite a bit after a fortnight or so and talked learnedly of “hooks” and “upper-cuts” and “side-stepping” and other mysterious things. And by that time Dud had become really interested and viewed Star Meyer with far less awe. In fact, though I grieve to relate it, he even got to the point where he speculated on what it would feel like to place his fist in violent contact with Star’s supercilious nose! The conclusion that he invariably arrived at was that the sensation would be distinctly pleasurable! But much to Jimmy’s disappointment—and a little to Dud’s, too, I fancy—Star offered the latter no possible excuse for doing such a thing.
“He’s afraid of you,” grieved Jimmy. “Isn’t that the limit? A big, husky chap like him——”
“He,” corrected Dud.
“——Being afraid of a fellow six inches smaller,” continued the other, superbly disregarding the interruption. “Wouldn’t it make you weary? What we’ve got to do, Dud, is force a quarrel on him. There’s no use waiting for him to start anything!”
“Well, but why?” asked Dud doubtfully. “As long as he isn’t bothering me——”