But the madness of the moment had gotten into my blood and Jack’s.  The fight was going to take place.  We were glad of it.  We felt the magnetism of the crowd, the pulse of its excitement, and, as impatient as those around us, eagerly awaited developments.  The seconds and trainers had hardly clambered into Clancy’s corner when Clancy himself, followed by Terry Riley, appeared and leaped into the ring.  The crowd roared approval and he bowed right and left, waving his hands and nodding to acquaintances whom he recognized at the ring-side.  He wore a pale blue dressing-gown and though broad of shoulder seemed not even so tall as Sagorski, but he had a bullet head which at the cerebellum joined his thick neck, without indentation, in a straight line and his arms reached almost to his knees gorilla of a man a superbrute.  I caught a glimpse of Marcia watching him intently, and tried to read her thoughts.  She examined him with the critical gaze which she might have given a hackney at a horse show.

Jerry’s appearance with Flynn a moment later was the signal for another outburst from the crowd not so long a greeting nor so prolonged a one as that which had greeted Clancy, but warm enough to make the boy feel that he was not without friends in the house.  His face was a little pale but he smiled cheerfully enough when he reached the ring.  He shook hands with Gannon, whom he had met at Finnegan’s, and then, with a show of real enjoyment, with Clancy conversing with a composure that left nothing to be desired.

The crowd, like Jack and me, was comparing them.  Jerry’s six feet two topped the sailor by more than two inches, though I believe the latter would have a few pounds of extra weight.

“Big rascal, ain’t he?” the sportsman in the adjoining box commented.

“Yep,” grunted the stolid one.  “But too leggy.  Clancy’ll eat him alive eat him alive,” he repeated with more unction than before.

“Maybe,” said the other, “but I want to be shown.  There was another leggy feller the freckled one.”

“Fitz but Fitz was a fighter.”

“Well, I like his looks good-lookin’ feller, ain’t he?”

“Aw!  This ain’t no beauty parlor.  He’s got a glass jaw, I’ll bet.  ’S a goldfish, I tell you.  The sea lion will eat him alive eat him alive!”

I don’t know why the reiteration of this phrase of the fat man irritated me, but it did exceedingly, and I turned around and glared at him, a sharp retort on the tip of my tongue.  Ballard’s fingers closed on my arm and I was silent.  But the fat man’s glances and mine had met and held each other.

“What’s the matter, perfessor?” he asked testily.  “Friend of yours, eh?  Oh, well no harm done.  But if you’d like to back your judgment with a little something say fifty ”

But I had already turned my back on the fellow.

In the ring the men had thrown aside their dressing-gowns and the opposing seconds were examining the bandages upon their hands.  Clancy wore bright green trunks, which if his name had failed would have betrayed his lineage, and his great chest and arms were covered with designs in tattoo.  Jerry wore dark trunks.  And as his wonderful arms and torso were exposed to view, a murmur of approval went over the audience.  In spite of his training in the open his skin was still very white beside the bronzed figure of his adversary, but the muscles rippled smoothly and strongly under the fair skin and bulked large at thigh and forearm as he moved his limbs.  It was not the strong man’s figure nor yet, like Clancy’s, the stocky, thickly built structure of the professional fighter’s, yet it was so solid, so admirably compact that his great height was unnoticeable.  I could see from the expressions upon the faces of those about me and the calls from the seats behind us, that Jerry’s appearance had already gained the respect of the crowd, some members of which were already hailing him by his first name.  “Good boy, Jerry,” they cried, or “All right, old boy.  You’ve got the goods but look out for his right.”

Even the stout person beside me was silent and I heard nothing more about the goldfish.  Fortunately for him, and for me, I suspect, for had he repeated his phrase, I might have brained him with a chair.

The preliminary conferences at an end, the principals took their corners, fresh ones not used in the preliminaries, Jerry luckily with his back toward the box in which the Van Wyck girl was sitting.  If their glances had met, I did not notice.  For all that I knew.  Jerry might have been unaware that she was in the house.  He did not look around in a search for her and seemed totally absorbed in his instructions from Flynn, who stood outside the ropes just behind him whispering continuously in his ear, Jerry nodding from time to time and glancing across the ring to Clancy’s corner, where the superbeast was sprawled, his long arms extended upon the ropes.  Spatola and the black Swede were seeing to Jerry’s gloves and looking over every detail of the corner with careful eyes.

The referee called the two men to the center of the ring and gave them some final instructions, to which they nodded assent, and they had hardly returned to their corners when the gong clanged, stools and paraphernalia were whipped out of the ring, the seconds and trainers crouched outside and the fight was on.  As the men came together the disparity in their sizes became less marked for, while Clancy was the shorter, he made up by his huge bulk what he lacked in height.  He was a dangerous man, but there was no timidity in Jerry’s eyes and he came forward sparring carefully, gliding backward and forward feeling out the other man’s length and speed.  Clancy’s left grazed Jerry’s ear and the boy countered lightly.  His color was rising now and his eyes were sparkling.  It was good, it was a game he loved.  The moment of stage fright had passed.  He had forgotten the crowd.  His foot-work was fast and made Clancy seem almost sluggish by comparison.  That was the danger.  Would he waste himself too early?  Ten rounds!  Not too long for Jerry, if the other didn’t land dangerously and more often than he.  Clancy played for the head, and caught the boy fairly on the jaw, but got a blow in the ribs that made him grunt.  Jerry did most of the leading, ducking a vicious swing of Clancy’s right, that made the Sailor look foolish, and brought a roar of delight from the crowd.  Clancy grinned cheerfully and came on, stabbing with his long left arm at Jerry’s head, but getting only his trouble for his pains.  At the close of the round the honors were even, and both were smiling in their corners.

“He’s got the science,” said the optimist next door, “a pretty piece o’ work very pretty.”

“Just you wait, Petey,” said the stout man, while behind us an Irishman shouted, “Get them green tights workin’, Clancy.”

The second round was clearly Jerry’s.  Even the stout man admitted it.  Clancy’s famous crouching pose met with mishap early in the round, for Jerry by fine judgment twice evaded the advancing left arm and straightened Clancy with terrific upper cuts, the kind that Flynn had said were like tons of coal.  At the end of the round Clancy realized, I think, that his opponent was well worth considering seriously, for when he came to the center of the ring again, his face washed clean, he wore a solemn expression curious and respectful, but villainously determined.  He began boring in, as the phrase is, leading constantly and taking what came.  He hit Jerry hard, always when the boy was going away, however, and caught some well-judged ones in return.  He swung a hard right which caught Jerry napping and sent him against the ropes, but before he could follow up the advantage the boy had slipped out of danger.  They exchanged blows here, toe to toe, and the crowd howled with delight.  Here was a mere boxer who wasn’t afraid to take what he gave.  In the exchange Jerry profited, for Clancy, lunging with his right and missing, fell into a clinch where Jerry gave his ribs a fearful beating.  At the end of the round both were breathing hard, but the crowd was cheering, Jerry.

I find myself slipping into the phraseology of the sporting page, and little wonder when for weeks the boxer’s terms were the only phrases I had heard.  I hope I will not be blamed for dwelling with too great a particularity upon this affair, which, whatever its merits as a test of strength and skill, was nothing less than a contest in brutality.

During the minute of time Monroe and Spatola rubbed Jerry vigorously and when the gong clanged, though still breathing hard, Jerry was ready for Clancy’s rush.  He had been prepared for this by Flynn, who knew the fighter’s methods.  For before the seconds were well out of the ring Clancy had crossed toward Jerry’s corner, planning by sheer bulk and viciousness to sap some of Jerry’s strength.  But Jerry avoided the rush, stinging Clancy’s stomach with a terrific blow as he got out of danger.  With the whole of the ring back of him he stood up and shifting suddenly got inside of Clancy’s guard with his right on the jaw, which, catching the Sailor off his balance, sent him to the ropes, where he sank to the floor.  He took a count of six leisurely and was up again smiling and fighting hard.  Jerry’s lip was cut in this exchange, but at least during this round Clancy rushed no more.  They were both landing freely now, Jerry apparently willing to take his share of punishment in order to make a good showing.  I heard Jack Ballard muttering at my ear.  This was a mistake; I wondered if Flynn knew it.  With his skill, Jerry could have kept away and cut the man to ribbons.  But he was no slacker; this was no boxing tournament, as Jerry afterwards explained, but a fight, which meant pugnacity as well as skill.

But the crowd appreciated his efforts.  They were ring followers and knew “science” when they saw it, but more than skill they loved “sand” and more than “sand,” aggressiveness.  With the beginning of the seventh round the honors had all been with Jerry.  He had scored the first blood and the first knock-down and Clancy’s rushes had proved unavailing.  The professional’s lip was swollen, one eye was nearly closed, and his ribs were crimson from the terrible beating Jerry had given them.  Though his face was not so badly punished as Clancy’s, Jerry had not gotten off unscathed.  He was grim, determined, and cuts at the lip and eyes made him no handsomer than he should have been.  But he was breathing more easily than Clancy, and, though he had lost much of his speed, he still seemed able to avoid his opponent at will and to hold him off with his straight left arm.  Six rounds in which science had been more than a match for all Clancy’s bull strength and ring experience!  That in itself was something of an achievement, but Jerry was still further to show his strength, for in this seventh round Clancy went to the floor twice, the first time by a clean blow to the jaw through a beautiful opening that Jerry planned deliberately, feinting for the body, bringing a lead which Jerry half-ducked and then side stepped, throwing all the weight of his body into a blow with his right, timed and aimed with beautiful precision.

The crowd were on their feet, silent.  They thought that the end had come, for at the call of three Clancy had not moved, Flynn and Spatola were already above the level of the ring clinging to the ropes and Jerry stood breathing heavily, his arms at his sides watching the prostrate man.  At the count of six Clancy was on one elbow, eight found him on his knees struggling to his feet.  He swayed a little, but rose and fell into a clinch which saved him.  The referee tore the men apart and Jerry at once assumed the aggressive, making the weary Clancy move warily.  But one of Jerry’s left-hand blows caught him again, and he went half through the ropes.

It was here that Jerry earned the wild applause of the crowd by an act of magnanimity that was nothing less than Quixotic.  But it was like Jerry.  He wanted to take no unfair advantages.  He bent forward, lifting the upper rope, and helped Clancy into the ring.  There the round ended in a roar of cheering that did my heart and Jack’s good to hear.

But the thing was foolhardy.  The man was not done yet, as Jerry was to find out in a moment.  I saw Flynn frowning and protesting in Jerry’s ear, for the boy had been set for a knockout and the bout in all probability would have been ended.  Jerry listened, his arms stretched out along the ropes, smiling up at the glaring electric lights.  He was breathing convulsively and Spatola swung his towel furiously, fanning the heavy air into the boy’s gasping lungs.  He had had all the advantage so far and with good generalship could still win on points if he fought his own battle and not Clancy’s.  But would he?  I knew what Flynn was saying to him, what he was warning him against.  I had heard the warning often in the bouts at the Manor.  Failing in science and skill Clancy would “slug” (Flynn’s word, not mine), trusting to the prodigious length of his arms, taking the punishment that came to him, biding his time and the possible lucky blow which would turn the tide in his favor.

I glanced at Clancy’s corner.  There was anxiety there.  I think during the seventh round, Clancy had seen his fifteen thousand going a-glimmering and Riley was no less emphatic than Flynn.  There were but three more rounds three rounds in which the Sailor could regain his lost ground and the heavyweight laurels that seemed to be slipping from him.

When the gong clanged, it was immediately to be seen that Clancy’s whole plan of battle had changed.  From some hidden sources in that great hulk of a body he drew new forces of energy.  You will see the same thing in any wild beast of the jungle, a hidden reserve of nervous power and viciousness, most dangerous apparently when nearest extinction.  He was ugly his jowls shot forward, his brow lowering, his long arms shooting like pistons a jungle beast at bay.  Jerry stopped his progress again again with straight thrusts and uppercuts, but the man only covered up, crouched lower, and came on again.  Once he caught Jerry in the stomach and I saw the boy wince with pain; again he reached Jerry’s head, a terrific blow which would have sent him to the floor had Jerry not been moving away.  And all the while Jerry’s blows were landing, cutting the man, blinding him, but still he came on.  Was there no limit to the amount of punishment that he could endure?  Jerry’s blows were not the leads of a boxer, but fighting blows, and Clancy’s face and body would bear testimony to their strength for many a day, but he always came on for more a superbeast that as long as breath came and blood flowed, was untamed and unconquerable.  Jerry was tiring now and throwing discretion to the winds was trying for a knockout.  Two swings he missed by mere wildness and weariness of eye, and Flynn’s voice rose above the wild clamor of the of the crowd.  “Keep him off, Jerry keep him off!” But Jerry did not hear or did not choose to hear, for he no longer avoided Clancy’s blows or his advances, standing his ground and slugging wildly as Clancy was doing.  Jack Ballard saw the danger and sprang to his feet seconding Flynn’s advice, but he could not be heard above the roar of the crowd.  It was a wild moment.  A chance blow by either man would end the battle then.  I was no longer Roger Canby, ex-tutor and philosopher, but a mad mother-beast whose cub was fighting for its life.  “Keep him off, Jerry,” I yelled hoarsely again and again, but the boy still stood, his toe to Clancy’s, fighting wildly.  Three times they fell into clinches from sheer exhaustion to be pried apart by the referee, only to go at each other again.  This was no test of skill, but of brutality and chance.  I think that Jerry was mad brute mad, for, though Clancy’s blows were now reaching him, he didn’t seem to be aware of them.  His face was distorted with rage animal rage.  When the gong clanged at the end of this round, the eighth, they still fought even when Gannon thrust his bulk between them.

The crowd sank back into their seats gasping.  It was a long while since New York had seen a fight such as this.

“What d’ I tell you, Charlie?” whispered the optimist next to me hoarsely.

“By , he’s good an’ no mistake,” confessed the fat man.

“He’s got the Sailor goin’.”

Jack Ballard and I were in an agony of apprehension, watching the faces of the excited men in Jerry’s corner, who were trying to warn him before it was too late.  But we could see that Jerry was stubborn, for when Flynn pleaded with him he shook his head.  Spatola and the negro massaged him furiously, adding their anxious pleas to Flynn’s, but Jerry would not listen.  He was taking the foul air in huge gasps, his eyes closed, fighting for recuperation.

When the ninth round opened the men were both groggy and stumbled to the center of the ring like two blind men groping for each other, swinging wildly and moving slowly.  Each was intent upon a knockout.  Twice each swung and missed rights, avoiding the blows by remnants of their craft and cleverness.  Twice they stumbled into clinches and were torn apart by the pitiless Gannon.  In the in-fighting (a technical term) Jerry I think must have been struck I did not see the blow, but it must have been a terrific one for his knees sagged and his hands dropped to his sides while his mouth gaped open painfully.  At the cries from his corner Clancy drove a vicious blow, but Jerry weakly managed to avoid it.  But he couldn’t raise his arms.  Jerry was hurt, grievously hurt.  In a moment they were raised again, but he could not seem to see his mark and his swings were wild.  In agony I rose, my arm in Ballard’s, ready for the worst.  Clancy straightened, tried to collect what remained of his scattered wits and strength, poised himself and with a terrible blow, struck Jerry at the point of his chin.

He went down with a crash, his head striking the floor, and remained motionless.  Over him, one hand restraining Clancy, Gannon counted.  Jerry’s figure writhed upon the floor, twisting upon its head struggling to rise and then relaxed.  The fight was over.

A curious hush had fallen over the great hall.  Here and there Clancy’s friends were shouting in glee, but the great mass of the crowd, those whom Jerry had won by his skill and pluck, seemed bewildered.  The end had come too suddenly for them to realize what had happened and how it had happened.  The match was his.  He had won it.  It had only been a question of rounds.  And then, “Chance blow in the solar-plexus,” someone was saying.

It is curious how many and how lasting are the impressions that can be crowded into a second of time.  I clambered out of the box with Jack Ballard toward the ring, fearful of the blow to Jerry’s head upon the boards, and as I pushed my way through the bewildered crowd, I caught just a glimpse of Marcia Van Wyck’s party.  They were all standing up in their box, looking toward the ring.  A man beside her made a remark at the girl’s ear.  I saw her turn and flash a bright glance up at him and had a glimpse of her small white teeth.  She was laughing.  This is just an impression of a momentary glimpse, but it means much.  In this situation is the psychology of the real Marcia.  Jerry, her man-god, her brute-god, lay prone at her feet a quivering mass of bruised flesh, beaten and broken mind and body, and she could smile.

Tingling with rage at this incident, which I thanked God Jerry had not seen, I fought my way behind Jack to the aisle to the dressing-room, whither willing hands had carried the boy.  All around us we heard the encomiums of the crowd.

“Luck,” one said, “mere luck.”

“It’s all in the game.  But Benham’s the better man.”

“Lucky for Clancy that Jerry mixed it.  Could ’a cut the Sailor to pieces.”

“Some fight what?”

“The best in years.  The boy’s a wonder.”

All this from hardened followers of the ring.  The door to the dressing-room was jammed and a force of policemen was keeping back the people.  Our anxious queries were passed along to the doorway.

“He’s coming around all right,” said the sergeant.  “Now move along there, gents.  No admittance here.”

But Jack and I awaited our chance and when Sagorski poked his head out of the door he saw us and the sergeant let us through.

It was a very crestfallen group that greeted us.  Flynn and the negro, Monroe, were working over Jerry, who lay on a cot-bed near the window.  He had recovered consciousness and even as we entered he raised his head wearily and looked around.  His face was battered and bruised, and his smile as he greeted us partook of the character of his injuries.  But he was whole and I hoped not badly hurt.  Youth and strength, the best of medicines, were already reviving him.

“Well, Roger,” he muttered dully, “I’m licked.”

“Luck,” I said laconically.  Jack Ballard had clasped his big congested hand, “Proud of you, Jerry, old boy!  You ought to have won.  Why the Devil did you let him coax you into close quarters?”

“I thought I could stand what he could,” grunted Jerry.

“Not the lucky blow.  He had it.  If you’d stood him off ”

“I came here to fight ” said Jerry sinking back on his mattress wearily.

I think his mind was beginning to work slowly around to the real meaning of his defeat, not the mere failure of his science and skill, but the failure of his body and mind as against the mind and body of a trained brute, whom he had set his heart on conquering.  I knew as no one else there knew what the victory meant to him, and the memory of the brief glimpse I had had of the Van Wyck girl’s face when he lay in the ring inflamed me anew.  I know not what some vestige of my thought reached him, for he drew me toward him and when I bent my head he whispered in my ear,

“Marcia was there?”

I nodded.

“She stayed saw ?”

“Yes.”

He made no sound, and submitted silently to the ministrations of his trainers.

Flynn was philosophical.

“The fortunes of war, Misther Canby.  ‘T’was a gran’ fight, as fine a mill as you’ll see in a loife time wid the best man losin’ ’S a shame, sor; but Masther Jerry w’u’d have his way bad cess to ’m.  You can’t swap swipes wid a gorilla, sor.  It ain’t done.”

“He beat me fairly,” said Jerry sitting up.

“Who?  Clancy?  I’ll match you agin him tomorrow, Masther Jerry,” and he grinned cheerfully, “if ye’ll but take advice.”

“Advice!” sighed Jerry.  “You were right Flynn I I was wrong.”

“I wudden’t mind if it wasn’t for thinkin’ of that fifteen thousand.”

“I think he earned it,” laughed Jack.

Jerry sat up on the edge of the bed and stared around, one eye only visible.  The other was concealed behind a piece of raw meat that Flynn was holding over it.

“You lost something, Flynn?” he asked.

“A trifle, sor.”

“And the Kid and Tim?”

“And Rozy and Dan all of us a bit, sor.  But it don’t matther.”

“Well,” he said with a laugh.  “I’ll make it up to you, all of you, d’ you hear?  And I’m very much obliged for your confidence.”

It didn’t need this munificence on Jerry’s part to win the affection of these bruisers, but they were none the less cheerful on account of it.  As Jim Robinson he had won their esteem, and all the evening they had stood a little in awe of Jerry Benham, but before they left him that night he gave them a good handshake all around and invited them to his house on the morrow.  Between the crowd of us we got him into street clothes and a closed automobile in which Jack and I went with him to his house uptown.