"You see," explained Miss Yockley, to Daisy, "they put their best man up first; and now that the others has seen what Nick done to him, you couldn't coax 'em into the ring with old cheese. It looks to me as though everything's all over for to-night. Wait, though—here comes the spieler. Let's hear what he has to say; then we'll go around and see how soon Bob and Nick will be ready to come away."
"Ladhies and gentlemen," said the announcer, coming to the edge of the ring, "I regret to announct that, owing to the factth that we are unable to secure anodther oppon't in answer to Champeen Cluetth's challenge to any fighter of any weighth—"
At this point the speaker paused. A young man, in an automobile dust-coat, unbuttoned—showing that he was in evening dress and had evidently just arrived from some dance or other function—had hopped into the ring and tapped the announcer briskly on the arm to attract his attention. For a moment, the two held rapid conversation; then the young man in evening dress slipped under the ropes and disappeared again into the wings. The announcer, stepping to the very front of the stage and raising his voice so that he might be heard above the creakings of dispersal which already sounded in galleries and pit, said:
"If there are any presentth who may wish to remain a little longer, I am gladdh to be able to say that a certaint young man-about-town has agreed to meet the champeen in a boutth of four three-minutth rounts. As the stranger wishes his identity to be concealedh—for reasons of his own—he will appear in the ringk masked."
"Masked!" commented Miss Stella Yockley, "now, what's this they're trying to spring on us, I wonder. Well, anyway, they can't put nothin' over on Nick. He's in training to-night, and the Devil himself couldn't trim Nicky Cluett in four rounds. There ain't a fighter living could do it—no, sir, I don't care who he is." And with these words Miss Stella cast a devoted glance toward the corner of the ring where Mr. Cluett, still chatting unconcernedly, had drawn his bathrobe over his shoulders as a sign to the unknown to hurry up, if he wanted a chance to land a "haymaker" on a fighter whose time was money.
He had not long to wait. A young white-limbed fellow, with a pompadour of stiff hair rising above the black mask that covered him from mid-forehead to just above his mouth, vaulted over the ropes into the ring, and took the stool in the opposite corner to that in which Cluett stood. There was something about the lines of the stranger's mouth and chin that seemed to Daisy vaguely familiar.
After vainly trying to remember where she had seen similar features before, the girl turned her eyes toward the corner where Cluett had just sat down on the stool.
The champion, his elbows on his knees and his head leaning forward in its customary attitude, was looking at his latest opponent with a certain interest. Whether it was that the mask piqued his curiosity, or that there was something in the build and agility of the unknown which indexed prowess, was not evident to Daisy; but Miss Yockley murmured, half to herself:
"Sa-ay! Watch Nicky prick up his ears. He sees something—I don't know what it is, but I know he sees it."
As the gong sounded for the first round and the two got up from their stools, it was evident to the professional eye that Cluett's new opponent was, at any rate, more nearly his equal than the ill-fortuned Mr. Hobday.