-could
keep your mind on things that way; he was awful sick--just noticed that!

And then he heard Hamilton trying to square himself for what he'd tried
to do with the towel.

"He's out, I tell you!" Hamilton was saying. "He's out standing on his
feet!"

So he was even fooling his own seconds! Out standing on his feet? Why,
he'd been out for rounds and rounds! He didn't quite know how many. But
that didn't make any difference--but then Hamilton didn't know much about
the boxing game--he was just a sports writer!

"What round is it?" he asked. "Sixteenth!" Liars! Or maybe they were
joking. Anyway, he knew better. The tenth or eleventh, perhaps, but
never the sixteenth.

Was that the bell? No, he'd just kicked the water-pail? Shouldn't have
a tin pail in the ring, not even a new one. Ought to be a wooden bucket.
Well, they could just tell him when the bell did ring, and give him a
little shove in Holliday's direction, if they would. That was it--all
right--and the roof came down!

He found a way to remedy that; he'd hold it up. Hang onto Holliday's
arms, that was it. They were awful sticky, yet slippery, but he'd try.
And getting up was a slower business now in spite of himself. But if
they couldn't see that he'd taken quite a bit of punishment and had a
right to be a little dizzy, let 'em sit and sulk. They weren't shouting
any more, that was certain; they weren't even groaning happily when
Holliday hit him. And damn that roof! Or was it the floor? It
certainly had been _under_ the chin that time. Got to get up--and it
didn't seem possible--didn't seem as if he could. Was that English
holding him? Round was over? "Pardon me. Didn't hear the bell. They'd
ought to have a siren!"

And so back to his riddle. It wasn't a brick roof--ah, there was the key
to the whole puzzling problem. Let him once solve that--you just let him
get clear on that point--and see!

The bell! Holliday certainly was polite. He'd come all the way across
the ring in one leap to meet him. Saved him staggering miles and miles
toward the other corner. And thud! The roof--but it wasn't a thud. It
was a crash--a tinny clangor. Shouldn't have a tin pail--might have cut
himself. He got up, and promptly ran into something and sat down again.
It was easier to think, however, in that position. Tin! Tin! A tin
roof? That sounded more like it. Only it wasn't tin; it was--it was--

"Got it!" he shouted--he thoug