ently had cut above
one eye, almost to the bone. But English was fixing it--good old
English! He shouldn't have lost his temper and swung on English like
that. English was propping the lid open and sticking it so with adhesive.

And then there was the bell. How light his legs felt, and his arms! And
he'd doubted that the adhesive would do much; with the first savage slash
Holliday tore it away and the lid hung closed again. But he could see
from the other eye even though that seemed but a puffy mass. There was a
slit from which he could look out upon an insane, tumultuous world.

So he complimented himself upon his cunning. They thought Holliday had
blinded him; had closed both his eyes so that he could not see at all,
did they? Well, he could! Oh, he was foolin' 'em. Champion!

Once he'd looked that word up in a dictionary, just after he whipped
Fanchette; looked it up a little sheepishly, though he was alone at the
time. Champion:--One who by beating all rivals has obtained an
acknowledged supremacy. Then Devereau and Dunham were right. According
to that he wasn't a champion. Nobody acknowledged him. But he'd teach
'em a better definition. A champion was someone who could go right on
fighting when everybody was cheering for the other guy. A champion was
somebody who could fool 'em that easy!--that complete! You bet! Who
could fight and think at the same time, that clearly!--that
logically!--like he was doing.

But he fell down often. Yet that didn't prevent this reasoning things
out. And he didn't wait now for the count, either. He'd get right up
each time, he'd decided, so that they could not call him yellow. They
hated him so. But he knew the answer to that, too, at last. And that
gave him something to laugh at, the way Holliday had grinned. Honesty
was the best policy! He fair rocked with glee--and got up again!

Now English had him by the arm. He wouldn't hit English--English meant
well if he wasn't a champion. He'd follow English docilely and sit down
as he was ordered. He must have missed the bell again.

But English's crying, his whimpering, bothered him. It was a sniffling,
wild-beast whine. That's the way a wolf or a tiger would sound, outside
the circle of a fire's glow, unable to help its kitten or cub. But it
annoyed him just the same--took his mind off important things. And what
had English to cry over anyway? The roof hadn't fallen on him.

There was something ab