And, one day, three weeks from the time he took his first boxing lesson, this object was unexpectedly accomplished.
It was a Saturday afternoon, and the gang, freed from the tyranny of school and the irritation of Saturday morning chores, were joyously disporting themselves in a vacant lot at the corner of the street. The first inning of a baseball game was just over, and the overalled players were lying on the ground disputing certain fine points of the play with the audience.
André François stopped, leaned on the top rail of the fence, and gazed at them a trifle wistfully. Jimmie McCarthy's roving eye discovered him, and he yelled out:
"You'd better run along, Annie—nursie will be out lookin' fer yer in a minnut."
The gang laughed flatteringly at the subtle wit of their leader. André François' face flushed a vivid crimson and his eyes darkened. Then he electrified the gang by leaping over the fence and rushing straight up to the redoubtable Jimmie.
He thrust out his chin and yelled up into the face of the surprised leader:
"I'll show you if I'm an Annie or not. D'you want to fight?"
Jimmie stood dumb with amazement a moment, then he laughed long and loud, for his sense of humor was Irish; and the whole gang joined in.
"S-a-a-y," he said, "yer wanter git licked again, d'yer? You must'er got inter the habit. I tell yer what—I got a baby brother two years old ter home. I'll go fetch him, and the two o' yez kin have it out."