A Piece of Steak
by Jack London
(1876-1916)
Word Count: 7805
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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