ool together. We grew up chums.
His fight was my fight. My trouble was his trouble. We both took to the
fightin' game. They matched us. Not the first time. Twice we'd fought
draws. Once the decision was his; once it was mine. The fifth fight of
two lovin' men that just loved each other. He's three years older'n me.
He's a wife and two or three kids, an' I know them, too. And he's my
friend. Get it?

"I'm ten pounds heavier--but with heavyweights that 'a all right. He
can't time an' distance as good as me, an' I can keep set better, too.
But he's cleverer an' quicker. I never was quick like him. We both can
take punishment, an' we're both two-handed, a wallop in all our fists.
I know the kick of his, an' he knows my kick, an' we're both real
respectful. And we're even-matched. Two draws, and a decision to each.
Honest, I ain't any kind of a hunch who's gain' to win, we're that even.

"Now, the fight.--You ain't squeamish, are you?"

"No, no," she cried. "I'd just love to hear--you are so wonderful."

He took the praise with a clear, unwavering look, and without hint of
acknowledgment.

"We go along--six rounds--seven rounds--eight rounds; an' honors even.
I've been timin' his rushes an' straight-leftin' him, an' meetin' his
duck with a wicked little right upper-cut, an' he's shaken me on the
jaw an' walloped my ears till my head's all singin' an' buzzin'. An'
everything lovely with both of us, with a noise like a draw decision in
sight. Twenty rounds is the distance, you know.

"An' then his bad luck comes. We're just mixin' into a clinch that ain't
arrived yet, when he shoots a short hook to my head--his left, an' a
real hay-maker if it reaches my jaw. I make a forward duck, not quick
enough, an' he lands bingo on the side of my head. Honest to God, Saxon,
it's that heavy I see some stars. But it don't hurt an' ain't serious,
that high up where the bone's thick. An' right there he finishes
himself, for his bad thumb, which I've known since he first got it as a
kid fightin' in the sandlot at Watts Tract--he smashes that thumb right
there, on my hard head, back into the socket with an out-twist, an' all
the old cords that'd never got strong gets theirs again. I didn't mean
it. A dirty trick, fair in the game, though, to make a guy smash his
hand on your head. But not between friends. I couldn't a-done that to
Bill Murphy for a million dollars. It was a accident, just because I was
slow, because I was born slow.

"