orted himself with the care-free jauntiness of
an infant about to demolish a Noah's Ark with a tack-hammer. Cyclone
Mullinses might withstand him for fifteen rounds where they yielded to
a K-leg Binns in the fifth, but, when it came to beating up a
sparring-partner and an amateur at that, Bugs Butler knew his
potentialities. He was there forty ways and he did not attempt to
conceal it. Crouching as was his wont, he uncoiled himself like a
striking rattlesnake and flicked Ginger lightly over his guard. Then
he returned to his crouch and circled sinuously about the ring with the
amiable intention of showing the crowd, payers and deadheads alike, what
real footwork was. If there was one thing on which Bugs Butler prided
himself, it was footwork.

The adverb "lightly" is a relative term, and the blow which had just
planted a dull patch on Ginger's cheekbone affected those present in
different degrees. Ginger himself appeared stolidly callous. Sally
shuddered to the core of her being and had to hold more tightly to the
rope to support herself. The two wise guys mocked openly. To the
wise guys, expert connoisseurs of swat, the thing had appeared richly
farcical. They seemed to consider the blow, administered to a third
party and not to themselves, hardly worth calling a blow at all. Two
more, landing as quickly and neatly as the first, left them equally
cold.

"Call that punching?" said the first wise guy.

"Ah!" said the second wise guy.

But Mr. Butler, if he heard this criticism--and it is probable that he
did--for the wise ones had been restrained by no delicacy of feeling
from raising their voices, was in no way discommoded by it. Bugs Butler
knew what he was about. Bright eyes were watching him, and he meant to
give them a treat. The girls like smooth work. Any roughneck could sail
into a guy and knock the daylights out of him, but how few could be
clever and flashy and scientific? Few, few, indeed, thought Mr. Butler
as he slid in and led once more.

Something solid smote Mr. Butler's nose, rocking him on to his heels and
inducing an unpleasant smarting sensation about his eyes. He backed
away and regarded Ginger with astonishment, almost with pain. Until this
moment he had scarcely considered him as an active participant in the
scene at all, and he felt strongly that this sort of thing was bad form.
It was not being done by sparring-partners.

A juster man might have reflected that he himself was to blame. He h