"Say!" Miss Yockley's tone thrilled with reluctant admiration, "did you notice the footwork of that boy?... No, you don't, Mr. Mask.... Yes, you did, too! Sa-ay, you better watch that lad, Nicky Cluett!"
The last three ejaculations as the masked fighter tried for the head and—marvel of marvels to Cluett's admirers!—landed. Landed lightly; but landed, nevertheless.
As this happened, there came a hush of conversation all over the house. From boxes and orchestra circle, and gallery and balcony there sounded, as it were, one simultaneous creak as the audience leaned forward in their seats.
Nick Cluett was still smiling the smile that had never been known to leave his face, even in sleep. But, otherwise, his whole demeanor had changed. His arms, instead of swinging careless and indolently half-crooked, at his sides, were raised in his low impassable guard. His back, straight from hips to shoulder, leaned a little forward. The head was bent in his customary fighting pose, forehead out and chin in.
"'Watch', was what I said," Miss Yockley, gloved hands clasped together with feminine tenseness under her chin, breathed, to everybody in general, "and I hope you're watching, for th' sake of what you'll miss if you ain't."
The champion was following the stranger around the ring. The masked man, with light hissings of his shoes on the canvas floor, backed at exactly the same pace, carefully avoiding corners, seeming to know where he was by instinct and without the necessity of what would have been an instantly-disastrous look over-shoulder. There was neither blow nor feint. Sometimes the gloves of the fighters touched, but the impact was feather-light and without audible sound.
Then Cluett struck. It was not like a blow—it was more like a shot. That is to say, one saw nothing of the travelling fist: merely noticed the effect, in a red which grew between the stranger's lips, until it ran down in a long thin trickle over his bulldoggy chin.
"Gosh all jew's-harps!" monologued the tautened Miss Yockley, who did not seem gratified, "Nick missed him. That was meant for the point of the jaw. Would have been a K. O., too, if it had gone where it was looking. But ou-wouch!"
This last as the masked man's shoulders, gleaming white under the electric arcs, see-sawed flashingly. With apparently no visible reason for the movement, Nick Cluett's head rocked. The gong sounded, closing Round One.
"Jiminy!" Miss Stella said, "watch Bob!"