"Don't make me smile, Bob," observed Mr. Cluett, wryly but tolerantly, as the seconds, working on the cut over his eye, made it smart momentarily with the caustic they were using to stop the blood; "my lips are cracked. Ta-ake it easy. Leggo now—leggo!"
There was no opposing the note in the last word. Mr. Masterman, grumblingly releasing the arm he held, stepped back through the ropes.
"All right," was his final shot; "it's your funeral, Nick."
"There ain't goin' to be no funeral," said Mr. Cluett, "didn't I tell you to keep your shirt on. Have I ever fell down on a bet, th' whole time you've knew me? Have I?"
"Well," retorted his manager, "all I know is, you're pretty near due to lose on points, unless you can make this last round all yours."
Nick Cluett merely turned away his head, having said enough—for him. As the gong sounded for climactic Round Four, both boxers, with the "bluff" of the ring, sprang to meet each other as though it had required ten men apiece to hold them back till the moment came. For all this business of haste, however, their gloves touched warily. A four-round mill is a very short one, even for two ringmasters like Nick and his opponent, to feel out a new antagonist in; and, though each knew points of the other's "style" by now, each knew there was more to uncover and that it would be uncovered in this deciding round. The bout, so far, had been a clean and pretty one; and that the audience had developed no partialities was made evident by the way in which both men were cheered as they worked.
But in this last round it was Cluett who was especially marvellous. Right from the tap of the gong he was the aggressor. Round and round the ring he backed his opponent; giving the stranger never the chance to start, much less to land, a blow. But if the champion's offensive was lightninglike and wonderful, the masked man's guard was no less so. For, though Cluett's glove landed in each case, it landed with its force broken by the elastic and elusive movement of the stranger's head and torso.
"Easy, Nick—easy," spurted Masterman, though his eyes shone; "don't let him play you out, boy." Besides the pride he felt in his man's work, Bob Masterman knew that if Cluett kept this overshadowing gait to the end of the round, he would win hands down on points.