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