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A Piece of Steak

Short Stories

A Curious Fragment

A Day's lodging

A Nose for the king

A Piece of Steak

A Wicked Woman

All Gold Canyon

Brown Wolf

Created He Them

Four Horses and a Sailor

Just Meat

Love of life

Make Westing

Nam-Bok the Unveracious

Negore, the coward

Nothing That Ever Came to Anything

Semper Idem

Small-Boat Sailing

That Dead Men Rise Up Never

That spot

The "Francis Spaight"

The Apostate

The Chinago

The Heathen

The Hobo and the Fairy

The Human Drift

The story of Keesh

The Sun-Dog Trail

The Unexpected

The white man's way

Trust

When God Laughs

Yellow Handkerchief







With the last morsel of bread Tom King wiped his plate clean of the last
particle of flour gravy and chewed the resulting mouthful in a slow and
meditative way. When he arose from the table, he was oppressed by the
feeling that he was distinctly hungry. Yet he alone had eaten. The two
children in the other room had been sent early to bed in order that in
sleep they might forget they had gone supperless. His wife had touched
nothing, and had sat silently and watched him with solicitous eyes. She
was a thin, worn woman of the working-class, though signs of an earlier
prettiness were not wanting in her face. The flour for the gravy she had
borrowed from the neighbour across the hall The last two ha'pennies had
gone to buy the bread.

He sat down by the window on a rickety chair that protested under his
weight, and quite mechanically he put his pipe in his mouth and dipped into
the side pocket of his coat. The absence of any tobacco made him aware of
his action, and, with a scowl for his forgetfulness, he put the pipe away.
His movements were slow, almost hulking, as though he were burdened by the
heavy weight of his muscles. He was a solid-bodied, stolid-looking man,
and his appearance did not suffer from being overprepossessing. His rough
clothes were old and slouchy. The uppers of his shoes were too weak to
carry the heavy re-soling that was itself of no recent date. And his
cotton shirt, a cheap, two shilling affair, showed a frayed collar and
ineradicable paint stains.

But it was Tom King's face that advertised him unmistakably for what he
was. It was the face of a typical prize-fighter; of one who had put in
long years of service in the squared ring and, by that means, developed and
emphasized all the marks of the fighting beast. It was distinctly a
lowering countenance, and, that no feature of it might escape notice, it
was clean-shaven. The lips were shapeless and constituted a mouth harsh to
excess, that was like a gash in his face. The jaw was aggressive, brutal,
heavy. The eyes, slow of movement and heavy-lidded, were almost
expressionless under the shaggy, indrawn brows. Sheer animal that he was,
the eyes were the most animal-like feature about him. They were sleepy,
lion-like--the eyes of a fighting animal. The forehead slanted quickly
back to the hair, which, clipped close, showed every bump of a villainous-
looking head. A nose twice broken and moulded variously by countless
blows, and a cauliflower ear, permanently swollen and distorted to twice
its size, completed his adornment, while the beard, fresh-shaven as it was,
sprouted in the skin and gave the face a blue-black stain.

Altogether, it was the face of a man to be afraid of in a dark alley or
lonely place. And yet Tom King was not a criminal, nor had he ever done
anything criminal. Outside of brawls, common to his walk in life, he had
harmed no one. Nor had he ever been known to pick a quarrel. He was a
professional, and all the fighting brutishness of him was reserved for his
professional appearances. Outside the ring he was slow-going, easy-
natured, and, in his younger days, when money was flush, too open-handed
for his own good. He bore no grudges and had few enemies. Fighting was a
business with him. In the ring he struck to hurt, struck to maim, struck
to destroy; but there was no animus in it. It was a plain business
proposition. Audiences assembled and paid for the spectacle of men
knocking each other out. The winner took the big end of the purse. When
Tom King faced the Woolloomoolloo Gouger, twenty years before, he knew that
the Gouger's jaw was only four months healed after having been broken in a
Newcastle bout. And he had played for that jaw and broken it again in the
ninth round, not because he bore the Gouger any ill-will, but because that
was the surest way to put the Gouger out and win the big end of the purse.
Nor had the Gouger borne him any ill-will for it. It was the game, and
both knew the game and played it.

Tom King had never been a talker, and he sat by the window, morosely
silent, staring at his hands. The veins stood out on the backs of the
hands, large and swollen; and the knuckles, smashed and battered and
malformed, testified to the use to which they had been put. He had never
heard that a man's life was the life of his arteries, but well he knew the
meaning of those big upstanding veins. His heart had pumped too much blood
through them at top pressure. They no longer did the work. He had
stretched the elasticity out of them, and with their distension had passed
his endurance. He tired easily now. No longer could he do a fast twenty
rounds, hammer and tongs, fight, fight, fight, from gong to gong, with
fierce rally on top of fierce rally, beaten to the ropes and in turn
beating his opponent to the ropes, and rallying fiercest and fastest of all
in that last, twentieth round, with the house on its feet and yelling,
himself rushing, striking, ducking, raining showers of blows upon showers
of blows and receiving showers of blows in return, and all the time the
heart faithfully pumping the surging blood through the adequate veins. The
veins, swollen at the time, had always shrunk down again, though each time,
imperceptibly at first, not quite--remaining just a trifle larger than
before. He stared at them and at his battered knuckles, and, for the
moment, caught a vision of the youthful excellence of those hands before
the first knuckle had been smashed on the head of Benny Jones, otherwise
known as the Welsh Terror.

The impression of his hunger came back on him.

"Blimey, but couldn't I go a piece of steak!" he muttered aloud, clenching
his huge fists and spitting out a smothered oath.

"I tried both Burke's an' Sawley's," his wife said half apologetically.

"An' they wouldn't?" he demanded.

"Not a ha'penny. Burke said--" She faltered.

"G'wan! Wot'd he say?"

"As how 'e was thinkin' Sandel ud do ye to-night, an' as how yer score was
comfortable big as it was."

Tom King grunted, but did not reply. He was busy thinking of the bull
terrier he had kept in his younger days to which he had fed steaks without
end. Burke would have given him credit for a thousand steaks--then. But
times had changed. Tom King was getting old; and old men, fighting before
second-rate clubs, couldn't expect to run bills of any size with the
tradesmen.

He had got up in the morning with a longing for a piece of steak, and the
longing had not abated. He had not had a fair training for this fight. It
was a drought year in Australia, times were hard, and even the most
irregular work was difficult to find. He had had no sparring partner, and
his food had not been of the best nor always sufficient. He had done a few
days' navvy work when he could get it, and he had run around the Domain in
the early mornings to get his legs in shape. But it was hard, training
without a partner and with a wife and two kiddies that must be fed. Credit
with the tradesmen had undergone very slight expansion when he was matched
with Sandel. The secretary of the Gayety Club had advanced him three
pounds--the loser's end of the purse--and beyond that had refused to go.
Now and again he had managed to borrow a few shillings from old pals, who
would have lent more only that it was a drought year and they were hard put
themselves. No--and there was no use in disguising the fact--his training
had not been satisfactory. He should have had better food and no worries.
Besides, when a man is forty, it is harder to get into condition than when
he is twenty.

"What time is it, Lizzie?" he asked.

His wife went across the hall to inquire, and came back.

"Quarter before eight."

"They'll be startin' the first bout in a few minutes," he said. "Only a
try-out. Then there's a four-round spar 'tween Dealer Wells an' Gridley,
an' a ten-round go 'tween Starlight an' some sailor bloke. I don't come on
for over an hour."

At the end of another silent ten minutes, he rose to his feet.

"Truth is, Lizzie, I ain't had proper trainin'."

He reached for his hat and started for the door. He did not offer to kiss
her--he never did on going out--but on this night she dared to kiss him,
throwing her arms around him and compelling him to bend down to her face.
She looked quite small against the massive bulk of the man.

"Good luck, Tom," she said. "You gotter do 'im."

"Ay, I gotter do 'im," he repeated. "That's all there is to it. I jus'
gotter do 'im."

He laughed with an attempt at heartiness, while she pressed more closely
against him. Across her shoulders he looked around the bare room. It was
all he had in the world, with the rent overdue, and her and the kiddies.
And he was leaving it to go out into the night to get meat for his mate and
cubs--not like a modern working-man going to his machine grind, but in the
old, primitive, royal, animal way, by fighting for it.

"I gotter do 'im," he repeated, this time a hint of desperation in his
voice. "If it's a win, it's thirty quid--an' I can pay all that's owin',
with a lump o' money left over. If it's a lose, I get naught--not even a
penny for me to ride home on the tram. The secretary's give all that's
comin' from a loser's end. Good-bye, old woman. I'll come straight home
if it's a win."

"An' I'll be waitin' up," she called to him along the hall.

It was full two miles to the Gayety, and as he walked along he remembered
how in his palmy days--he had once been the heavyweight champion of New
South Wales--he would have ridden in a cab to the fight, and how, most
likely, some heavy backer would have paid for the cab and ridden with him.
There were Tommy Burns and that Yankee nigger, Jack Johnson--they rode
about in motor-cars. And he walked! And, as any man knew, a hard two
miles was not the best preliminary to a fight. He was an old un, and the
world did not wag well with old uns. He was good for nothing now except
navvy work, and his broken nose and swollen ear were against him even in
that. He found himself wishing that he had learned a trade. It would have
been better in the long run. But no one had told him, and he knew, deep
down in his heart, that he would not have listened if they had. It had
been so easy. Big money--sharp, glorious fights--periods of rest and
loafing in between--a following of eager flatterers, the slaps on the back,
the shakes of the hand, the toffs glad to buy him a drink for the privilege
of five minutes' talk--and the glory of it, the yelling houses, the
whirlwind finish, the referee's "King wins!" and his name in the sporting
columns next day.

Those had been times! But he realized now, in his slow, ruminating way,
that it was the old uns he had been putting away. He was Youth, rising;
and they were Age, sinking. No wonder it had been easy--they with their
swollen veins and battered knuckles and weary in the bones of them from the
long battles they had already fought. He remembered the time he put out
old Stowsher Bill, at Rush-Cutters Bay, in the eighteenth round, and how
old Bill had cried afterward in the dressing-room like a baby. Perhaps old
Bill's rent had been overdue. Perhaps he'd had at home a missus an' a
couple of kiddies. And perhaps Bill, that very day of the fight, had had a
hungering for a piece of steak. Bill had fought game and taken incredible
punishment. He could see now, after he had gone through the mill himself,
that Stowsher Bill had fought for a bigger stake, that night twenty years
ago, than had young Tom King, who had fought for glory and easy money. No
wonder Stowsher Bill had cried afterward in the dressing-room.

Well, a man had only so many fights in him, to begin with. It was the iron
law of the game. One man might have a hundred hard fights in him, another
man only twenty; each, according to the make of him and the quality of his
fibre, had a definite number, and, when he had fought them, he was done.
Yes, he had had more fights in him than most of them, and he had had far
more than his share of the hard, gruelling fights--the kind that worked the
heart and lungs to bursting, that took the elastic out of the arteries and
made hard knots of muscle out of Youth's sleek suppleness, that wore out
nerve and stamina and made brain and bones weary from excess of effort and
endurance overwrought. Yes, he had done better than all of them. There
were none of his old fighting partners left. He was the last of the old
guard. He had seen them all finished, and he had had a hand in finishing
some of them.

They had tried him out against the old uns, and one after another he had
put them away--laughing when, like old Stowsher Bill, they cried in the
dressing-room. And now he was an old un, and they tried out the youngsters
on him. There was that bloke, Sandel. He had come over from New Zealand
with a record behind him. But nobody in Australia knew anything about him,
so they put him up against old Tom King. If Sandel made a showing, he
would be given better men to fight, with bigger purses to win; so it was to
be depended upon that he would put up a fierce battle. He had everything
to win by it--money and glory and career; and Tom King was the grizzled old
chopping-block that guarded the highway to fame and fortune. And he had
nothing to win except thirty quid, to pay to the landlord and the
tradesmen. And, as Tom King thus ruminated, there came to his stolid
vision the form of Youth, glorious Youth, rising exultant and invincible,
supple of muscle and silken of skin, with heart and lungs that had never
been tired and torn and that laughed at limitation of effort. Yes, Youth
was the Nemesis. It destroyed the old uns and recked not that, in so
doing, it destroyed itself. It enlarged its arteries and smashed its
knuckles, and was in turn destroyed by Youth. For Youth was ever youthful.
It was only Age that grew old.

At Castlereagh Street he turned to the left, and three blocks along came to
the Gayety. A crowd of young larrikins hanging outside the door made
respectful way for him, and he heard one say to another: "That's 'im!
That's Tom King!"

Inside, on the way to his dressing-room, he encountered the secretary, a
keen-eyed, shrewd-faced young man, who shook his hand.

"How are you feelin', Tom?" he asked.

"Fit as a fiddle," King answered, though he knew that he lied, and that if
he had a quid, he would give it right there for a good piece of steak.

When he emerged from the dressing-room, his seconds behind him, and came
down the aisle to the squared ring in the centre of the hall, a burst of
greeting and applause went up from the waiting crowd. He acknowledged
salutations right and left, though few of the faces did he know. Most of
them were the faces of kiddies unborn when he was winning his first laurels
in the squared ring. He leaped lightly to the raised platform and ducked
through the ropes to his corner, where he sat down on a folding stool.
Jack Ball, the referee, came over and shook his hand. Ball was a broken-
down pugilist who for over ten years had not entered the ring as a
principal. King was glad that he had him for referee. They were both old
uns. If he should rough it with Sandel a bit beyond the rules, he knew
Ball could be depended upon to pass it by.

Aspiring young heavyweights, one after another, were climbing into the ring
and being presented to the audience by the referee. Also, he issued their
challenges for them.

"Young Pronto," Bill announced, "from North Sydney, challenges the winner
for fifty pounds side bet."

The audience applauded, and applauded again as Sandel himself sprang
through the ropes and sat down in his corner. Tom King looked across the
ring at him curiously, for in a few minutes they would be locked together
in merciless combat, each trying with all the force of him to knock the
other into unconsciousness. But little could he see, for Sandel, like
himself, had trousers and sweater on over his ring costume. His face was
strongly handsome, crowned with a curly mop of yellow hair, while his
thick, muscular neck hinted at bodily magnificence.

Young Pronto went to one corner and then the other, shaking hands with the
principals and dropping down out of the ring. The challenges went on.
Ever Youth climbed through the ropes--Youth unknown, but insatiable--crying
out to mankind that with strength and skill it would match issues with the
winner. A few years before, in his own heyday of invincibleness, Tom King
would have been amused and bored by these preliminaries. But now he sat
fascinated, unable to shake the vision of Youth from his eyes. Always were
these youngsters rising up in the boxing game, springing through the ropes
and shouting their defiance; and always were the old uns going down before
them. They climbed to success over the bodies of the old uns. And ever
they came, more and more youngsters--Youth unquenchable and irresistible--
and ever they put the old uns away, themselves becoming old uns and
travelling the same downward path, while behind them, ever pressing on
them, was Youth eternal--the new babies, grown lusty and dragging their
elders down, with behind them more babies to the end of time--Youth that
must have its will and that will never die.

King glanced over to the press box and nodded to Morgan, of the Sportsman,
and Corbett, of the Referee. Then he held out his hands, while Sid
Sullivan and Charley Bates, his seconds, slipped on his gloves and laced
them tight, closely watched by one of Sandel's seconds, who first examined
critically the tapes on King's knuckles. A second of his own was in
Sandel's corner, performing a like office. Sandel's trousers were pulled
off, and, as he stood up, his sweater was skinned off over his head. And
Tom King, looking, saw Youth incarnate, deep-chested, heavy-thewed, with
muscles that slipped and slid like live things under the white satin skin.
The whole body was a-crawl with life, and Tom King knew that it was a life
that had never oozed its freshness out through the aching pores during the
long fights wherein Youth paid its toll and departed not quite so young as
when it entered.

The two men advanced to meet each other, and, as the gong sounded and the
seconds clattered out of the ring with the folding stools, they shook hands
and instantly took their fighting attitudes. And instantly, like a
mechanism of steel and springs balanced on a hair trigger, Sandel was in
and out and in again, landing a left to the eyes, a right to the ribs,
ducking a counter, dancing lightly away and dancing menacingly back again.
He was swift and clever. It was a dazzling exhibition. The house yelled
its approbation. But King was not dazzled. He had fought too many fights
and too many youngsters. He knew the blows for what they were--too quick
and too deft to be dangerous. Evidently Sandel was going to rush things
from the start. It was to be expected. It was the way of Youth, expending
its splendour and excellence in wild insurgence and furious onslaught,
overwhelming opposition with its own unlimited glory of strength and
desire.

Sandel was in and out, here, there, and everywhere, light-footed and eager-
hearted, a living wonder of white flesh and stinging muscle that wove
itself into a dazzling fabric of attack, slipping and leaping like a flying
shuttle from action to action through a thousand actions, all of them
centred upon the destruction of Tom King, who stood between him and
fortune. And Tom King patiently endured. He knew his business, and he
knew Youth now that Youth was no longer his. There was nothing to do till
the other lost some of his steam, was his thought, and he grinned to
himself as he deliberately ducked so as to receive a heavy blow on the top
of his head. It was a wicked thing to do, yet eminently fair according to
the rules of the boxing game. A man was supposed to take care of his own
knuckles, and, if he insisted on hitting an opponent on the top of the
head, he did so at his own peril. King could have ducked lower and let the
blow whiz harmlessly past, but he remembered his own early fights and how
he smashed his first knuckle on the head of the Welsh Terror. He was but
playing the game. That duck had accounted for one of Sandel's knuckles.
Not that Sandel would mind it now. He would go on, superbly regardless,
hitting as hard as ever throughout the fight. But later on, when the long
ring battles had begun to tell, he would regret that knuckle and look back
and remember how he smashed it on Tom King's head.

The first round was all Sandel's, and he had the house yelling with the
rapidity of his whirlwind rushes. He overwhelmed King with avalanches of
punches, and King did nothing. He never struck once, contenting himself
with covering up, blocking and ducking and clinching to avoid punishment.
He occasionally feinted, shook his head when the weight of a punch landed,
and moved stolidly about, never leaping or springing or wasting an ounce of
strength. Sandel must foam the froth of Youth away before discreet Age
could dare to retaliate. All King's movements were slow and methodical,
and his heavy-lidded, slow-moving eyes gave him the appearance of being
half asleep or dazed. Yet they were eyes that saw everything, that had
been trained to see everything through all his twenty years and odd in the
ring. They were eyes that did not blink or waver before an impending blow,
but that coolly saw and measured distance.

Seated in his corner for the minute's rest at the end of the round, he lay
back with outstretched legs, his arms resting on the right angle of the
ropes, his chest and abdomen heaving frankly and deeply as he gulped down
the air driven by the towels of his seconds. He listened with closed eyes
to the voices of the house, "Why don't yeh fight, Tom?" many were crying.
"Yeh ain't afraid of 'im, are yeh?"

"Muscle-bound," he heard a man on a front seat comment. "He can't move
quicker. Two to one on Sandel, in quids."

The gong struck and the two men advanced from their corners. Sandel came
forward fully three-quarters of the distance, eager to begin again; but
King was content to advance the shorter distance. It was in line with his
policy of economy. He had not been well trained, and he had not had enough
to eat, and every step counted. Besides, he had already walked two miles
to the ringside. It was a repetition of the first round, with Sandel
attacking like a whirlwind and with the audience indignantly demanding why
King did not fight. Beyond feinting and several slowly delivered and
ineffectual blows he did nothing save block and stall and clinch. Sandel
wanted to make the pace fast, while King, out of his wisdom, refused to
accommodate him. He grinned with a certain wistful pathos in his ring-
battered countenance, and went on cherishing his strength with the jealousy
of which only Age is capable. Sandel was Youth, and he threw his strength
away with the munificent abandon of Youth. To King belonged the ring
generalship, the wisdom bred of long, aching fights. He watched with cool
eyes and head, moving slowly and waiting for Sandel's froth to foam away.
To the majority of the onlookers it seemed as though King was hopelessly
outclassed, and they voiced their opinion in offers of three to one on
Sandel. But there were wise ones, a few, who knew King of old time, and
who covered what they considered easy money.

The third round began as usual, one-sided, with Sandel doing all the
leading, and delivering all the punishment. A half-minute had passed when
Sandel, over-confident, left an opening. King's eyes and right arm flashed
in the same instant. It was his first real blow--a hook, with the twisted
arch of the arm to make it rigid, and with all the weight of the half-
pivoted body behind it. It was like a sleepy-seeming lion suddenly
thrusting out a lightning paw. Sandel, caught on the side of the jaw, was
felled like a bullock. The audience gasped and murmured awe-stricken
applause. The man was not muscle-bound, after all, and he could drive a
blow like a trip-hammer.

Sandel was shaken. He rolled over and attempted to rise, but the sharp
yells from his seconds to take the count restrained him. He knelt on one
knee, ready to rise, and waited, while the referee stood over him, counting
the seconds loudly in his ear. At the ninth he rose in fighting attitude,
and Tom King, facing him, knew regret that the blow had not been an inch
nearer the point of the jaw. That would have been a knock-out, and he
could have carried the thirty quid home to the missus and the kiddies.

The round continued to the end of its three minutes, Sandel for the first
time respectful of his opponent and King slow of movement and sleepy-eyed
as ever. As the round neared its close, King, warned of the fact by sight
of the seconds crouching outside ready for the spring in through the ropes,
worked the fight around to his own corner. And when the gong struck, he
sat down immediately on the waiting stool, while Sandel had to walk all the
way across the diagonal of the square to his own corner. It was a little
thing, but it was the sum of little things that counted. Sandel was
compelled to walk that many more steps, to give up that much energy, and to
lose a part of the precious minute of rest. At the beginning of every
round King loafed slowly out from his corner, forcing his opponent to
advance the greater distance. The end of every round found the fight
manoeuvred by King into his own corner so that he could immediately sit
down.

Two more rounds went by, in which King was parsimonious of effort and
Sandel prodigal. The latter's attempt to force a fast pace made King
uncomfortable, for a fair percentage of the multitudinous blows showered
upon him went home. Yet King persisted in his dogged slowness, despite the
crying of the young hot-heads for him to go in and fight. Again, in the
sixth round, Sandel was careless, again Tom King's fearful right flashed
out to the jaw, and again Sandel took the nine seconds count.

By the seventh round Sandel's pink of condition was gone, and he settled
down to what he knew was to be the hardest fight in his experience. Tom
King was an old un, but a better old un than he had ever encountered--an
old un who never lost his head, who was remarkably able at defence, whose
blows had the impact of a knotted club, and who had a knockout in either
hand. Nevertheless, Tom King dared not hit often. He never forgot his
battered knuckles, and knew that every hit must count if the knuckles were
to last out the fight. As he sat in his corner, glancing across at his
opponent, the thought came to him that the sum of his wisdom and Sandel's
youth would constitute a world's champion heavyweight. But that was the
trouble. Sandel would never become a world champion. He lacked the
wisdom, and the only way for him to get it was to buy it with Youth; and
when wisdom was his, Youth would have been spent in buying it.

King took every advantage he knew. He never missed an opportunity to
clinch, and in effecting most of the clinches his shoulder drove stiffly
into the other's ribs. In the philosophy of the ring a shoulder was as
good as a punch so far as damage was concerned, and a great deal better so
far as concerned expenditure of effort. Also, in the clinches King rested
his weight on his opponent, and was loath to let go. This compelled the
interference of the referee, who tore them apart, always assisted by
Sandel, who had not yet learned to rest. He could not refrain from using
those glorious flying arms and writhing muscles of his, and when the other
rushed into a clinch, striking shoulder against ribs, and with head resting
under Sandel's left arm, Sandel almost invariably swung his right behind
his own back and into the projecting face. It was a clever stroke, much
admired by the audience, but it was not dangerous, and was, therefore, just
that much wasted strength. But Sandel was tireless and unaware of
limitations, and King grinned and doggedly endured.

Sandel developed a fierce right to the body, which made it appear that King
was taking an enormous amount of punishment, and it was only the old
ringsters who appreciated the deft touch of King's left glove to the
other's biceps just before the impact of the blow. It was true, the blow
landed each time; but each time it was robbed of its power by that touch on
the biceps. In the ninth round, three times inside a minute, King's right
hooked its twisted arch to the jaw; and three times Sandel's body, heavy as
it was, was levelled to the mat. Each time he took the nine seconds
allowed him and rose to his feet, shaken and jarred, but still strong. He
had lost much of his speed, and he wasted less effort. He was fighting
grimly; but he continued to draw upon his chief asset, which was Youth.
King's chief asset was experience. As his vitality had dimmed and his
vigour abated, he had replaced them with cunning, with wisdom born of the
long fights and with a careful shepherding of strength. Not alone had he
learned never to make a superfluous movement, but he had learned how to
seduce an opponent into throwing his strength away. Again and again, by
feint of foot and hand and body he continued to inveigle Sandel into
leaping back, ducking, or countering. King rested, but he never permitted
Sandel to rest. It was the strategy of Age.

Early in the tenth round King began stopping the other's rushes with
straight lefts to the face, and Sandel, grown wary, responded by drawing
the left, then by ducking it and delivering his right in a swinging hook to
the side of the head. It was too high up to be vitally effective; but when
first it landed, King knew the old, familiar descent of the black veil of
unconsciousness across his mind. For the instant, or for the slighest
fraction of an instant, rather, he ceased. In the one moment he saw his
opponent ducking out of his field of vision and the background of white,
watching faces; in the next moment he again saw his opponent and the
background of faces. It was as if he had slept for a time and just opened
his eyes again, and yet the interval of unconsciousness was so
microscopically short that there had been no time for him to fall. The
audience saw him totter and his knees give, and then saw him recover and
tuck his chin deeper into the shelter of his left shoulder.

Several times Sandel repeated the blow, keeping King partially dazed, and
then the latter worked out his defence, which was also a counter. Feinting
with his left he took a half-step backward, at the same time upper cutting
with the whole strength of his right. So accurately was it timed that it
landed squarely on Sandel's face in the full, downward sweep of the duck,
and Sandel lifted in the air and curled backward, striking the mat on his
head and shoulders. Twice King achieved this, then turned loose and
hammered his opponent to the ropes. He gave Sandel no chance to rest or to
set himself, but smashed blow in upon blow till the house rose to its feet
and the air was filled with an unbroken roar of applause. But Sandel's
strength and endurance were superb, and he continued to stay on his feet.
A knock-out seemed certain, and a captain of police, appalled at the
dreadful punishment, arose by the ringside to stop the fight. The gong
struck for the end of the round and Sandel staggered to his corner,
protesting to the captain that he was sound and strong. To prove it, he
threw two back-air-springs, and the police captain gave in.

Tom King, leaning back in his corner and breathing hard, was disappointed.
If the fight had been stopped, the referee, perforce, would have rendered
him the decision and the purse would have been his. Unlike Sandel, he was
not fighting for glory or career, but for thirty quid. And now Sandel
would recuperate in the minute of rest.

Youth will be served--this saying flashed into King's mind, and he
remembered the first time he had heard it, the night when he had put away
Stowsher Bill. The toff who had bought him a drink after the fight and
patted him on the shoulder had used those words. Youth will be served!
The toff was right. And on that night in the long ago he had been Youth.
To-night Youth sat in the opposite corner. As for himself, he had been
fighting for half an hour now, and he was an old man. Had he fought like
Sandel, he would not have lasted fifteen minutes. But the point was that
he did not recuperate. Those upstanding arteries and that sorely tried
heart would not enable him to gather strength in the intervals between the
rounds. And he had not had sufficient strength in him to begin with. His
legs were heavy under him and beginning to cramp. He should not have
walked those two miles to the fight. And there was the steak which he had
got up longing for that morning. A great and terrible hatred rose up in
him for the butchers who had refused him credit. It was hard for an old
man to go into a fight without enough to eat. And a piece of steak was
such a little thing, a few pennies at best; yet it meant thirty quid to
him.

With the gong that opened the eleventh round, Sandel rushed, making a show
of freshness which he did not really possess. King knew it for what it
was--a bluff as old as the game itself. He clinched to save himself, then,
going free, allowed Sandel to get set. This was what King desired. He
feinted with his left, drew the answering duck and swinging upward hook,
then made the half-step backward, delivered the upper cut full to the face
and crumpled Sandel over to the mat. After that he never let him rest,
receiving punishment himself, but inflicting far more, smashing Sandel to
the ropes, hooking and driving all manner of blows into him, tearing away
from his clinches or punching him out of attempted clinches, and ever when
Sandel would have fallen, catching him with one uplifting hand and with the
other immediately smashing him into the ropes where he could not fall.

The house by this time had gone mad, and it was his house, nearly every
voice yelling: "Go it, Tom!" "Get 'im! Get 'im!" "You've got 'im, Tom!
You've got 'im!" It was to be a whirlwind finish, and that was what a
ringside audience paid to see.

And Tom King, who for half an hour had conserved his strength, now expended
it prodigally in the one great effort he knew he had in him. It was his
one chance--now or not at all. His strength was waning fast, and his hope
was that before the last of it ebbed out of him he would have beaten his
opponent down for the count. And as he continued to strike and force,
coolly estimating the weight of his blows and the quality of the damage
wrought, he realized how hard a man Sandel was to knock out. Stamina and
endurance were his to an extreme degree, and they were the virgin stamina
and endurance of Youth. Sandel was certainly a coming man. He had it in
him. Only out of such rugged fibre were successful fighters fashioned.

Sandel was reeling and staggering, but Tom King's legs were cramping and
his knuckles going back on him. Yet he steeled himself to strike the
fierce blows, every one of which brought anguish to his tortured hands.
Though now he was receiving practically no punishment, he was weakening as
rapidly as the other. His blows went home, but there was no longer the
weight behind them, and each blow was the result of a severe effort of
will. His legs were like lead, and they dragged visibly under him; while
Sandel's backers, cheered by this symptom, began calling encouragement to
their man.

King was spurred to a burst of effort. He delivered two blows in
succession--a left, a trifle too high, to the solar plexus, and a right
cross to the jaw. They were not heavy blows, yet so weak and dazed was
Sandel that he went down and lay quivering. The referee stood over him,
shouting the count of the fatal seconds in his ear. If before the tenth
second was called, he did not rise, the fight was lost. The house stood in
hushed silence. King rested on trembling legs. A mortal dizziness was
upon him, and before his eyes the sea of faces sagged and swayed, while to
his ears, as from a remote distance, came the count of the referee. Yet he
looked upon the fight as his. It was impossible that a man so punished
could rise.

Only Youth could rise, and Sandel rose. At the fourth second he rolled
over on his face and groped blindly for the ropes. By the seventh second
he had dragged himself to his knee, where he rested, his head rolling
groggily on his shoulders. As the referee cried "Nine!" Sandel stood
upright, in proper stalling position, his left arm wrapped about his face,
his right wrapped about his stomach. Thus were his vital points guarded,
while he lurched forward toward King in the hope of effecting a clinch and
gaining more time.

At the instant Sandel arose, King was at him, but the two blows he
delivered were muffled on the stalled arms. The next moment Sandel was in
the clinch and holding on desperately while the referee strove to drag the
two men apart. King helped to force himself free. He knew the rapidity
with which Youth recovered, and he knew that Sandel was his if he could
prevent that recovery. One stiff punch would do it. Sandel was his,
indubitably his. He had out-generalled him, out-fought him, out-pointed
him. Sandel reeled out of the clinch, balanced on the hair line between
defeat or survival. One good blow would topple him over and down and out.
And Tom King, in a flash of bitterness, remembered the piece of steak and
wished that he had it then behind that necessary punch he must deliver. He
nerved himself for the blow, but it was not heavy enough nor swift enough.
Sandel swayed, but did not fall, staggering back to the ropes and holding
on. King staggered after him, and, with a pang like that of dissolution,
delivered another blow. But his body had deserted him. All that was left
of him was a fighting intelligence that was dimmed and clouded from
exhaustion. The blow that was aimed for the jaw struck no higher than the
shoulder. He had willed the blow higher, but the tired muscles had not
been able to obey. And, from the impact of the blow, Tom King himself
reeled back and nearly fell. Once again he strove. This time his punch
missed altogether, and, from absolute weakness, he fell against Sandel and
clinched, holding on to him to save himself from sinking to the floor.

King did not attempt to free himself. He had shot his bolt. He was gone.
And Youth had been served. Even in the clinch he could feel Sandel growing
stronger against him. When the referee thrust them apart, there, before
his eyes, he saw Youth recuperate. From instant to instant Sandel grew
stronger. His punches, weak and futile at first, became stiff and
accurate. Tom King's bleared eyes saw the gloved fist driving at his jaw,
and he willed to guard it by interposing his arm. He saw the danger,
willed the act; but the arm was too heavy. It seemed burdened with a
hundredweight of lead. It would not lift itself, and he strove to lift it
with his soul. Then the gloved fist landed home. He experienced a sharp
snap that was like an electric spark, and, simultaneously, the veil of
blackness enveloped him.

When he opened his eyes again he was in his corner, and he heard the
yelling of the audience like the roar of the surf at Bondi Beach. A wet
sponge was being pressed against the base of his brain, and Sid Sullivan
was blowing cold water in a refreshing spray over his face and chest. His
gloves had already been removed, and Sandel, bending over him, was shaking
his hand. He bore no ill-will toward the man who had put him out and he
returned the grip with a heartiness that made his battered knuckles
protest. Then Sandel stepped to the centre of the ring and the audience
hushed its pandemonium to hear him accept young Pronto's challenge and
offer to increase the side bet to one hundred pounds. King looked on
apathetically while his seconds mopped the streaming water from him, dried
his face, and prepared him to leave the ring. He felt hungry. It was not
the ordinary, gnawing kind, but a great faintness, a palpitation at the pit
of the stomach that communicated itself to all his body. He remembered
back into the fight to the moment when he had Sandel swaying and tottering
on the hair-line balance of defeat. Ah, that piece of steak would have
done it! He had lacked just that for the decisive blow, and he had lost.
It was all because of the piece of steak.

His seconds were half-supporting him as they helped him through the ropes.
He tore free from them, ducked through the ropes unaided, and leaped
heavily to the floor, following on their heels as they forced a passage for
him down the crowded centre aisle. Leaving the dressing-room for the
street, in the entrance to the hall, some young fellow spoke to him.

"W'y didn't yuh go in an' get 'im when yuh 'ad 'im?" the young fellow
asked.

"Aw, go to hell!" said Tom King, and passed down the steps to the sidewalk.

The doors of the public-house at the corner were swinging wide, and he saw
the lights and the smiling barmaids, heard the many voices discussing the
fight and the prosperous chink of money on the bar. Somebody called to him
to have a drink. He hesitated perceptibly, then refused and went on his
way.

He had not a copper in his pocket, and the two-mile walk home seemed very
long. He was certainly getting old. Crossing the Domain, he sat down
suddenly on a bench, unnerved by the thought of the missus sitting up for
him, waiting to learn the outcome of the fight. That was harder than any
knockout, and it seemed almost impossible to face.

He felt weak and sore, and the pain of his smashed knuckles warned him
that, even if he could find a job at navvy work, it would be a week before
he could grip a pick handle or a shovel. The hunger palpitation at the pit
of the stomach was sickening. His wretchedness overwhelmed him, and into
his eyes came an unwonted moisture. He covered his face with his hands,
and, as he cried, he remembered Stowsher Bill and how he had served him
that night in the long ago. Poor old Stowsher Bill! He could understand
now why Bill had cried in the dressing-room.




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