." I
heard her at the lever as they began to spar.

I don't believe I could get a job at timekeeping in a real mill. My
rounds must have been wonderfully and fearfully made. For I forgot all
about the stop-watch now and then, while I learned the truth of the
Hartopp's caution that "Boiler-plate" grew rough after he'd been
drinking a bit.

I knew that Jack had been a pretty fair boxer at the university, but,
after I had called time for the first round, the thing was to all
intents and purposes a genuine fight, and he was all in several times
over. The "Boiler-plate's" fists made a noise like a woodchopper.
Natica stood watching it with a queer, queer smile. But I saw--and I
saw it with a sinking at the heart, for I realized that I'd cherished
the guilty hope that things were not really going to be straightened
out--that with every mark of the "Boiler-plate's" glove, her husband
was coming back into his own.

She half sprang toward them when Jack went down with a crash, after I
had got them started on the last go. Drayton arose warily, the blood
spurting from a nasty cut over the eye, where the heel of the other's
glove had scraped. The "Boiler-plate" lumbered dangerously near just
then, and Natica, despite her, uttered a cry of warning.

I saw Jack turn away from the mountain in the Yale rowing shirt, and
his eyes met Natica's squarely for the first time since Cherry's.
Something he read in them made him laugh. This was only for the
fraction of a second, however, for a glove, with the _n_th power
behind it, lifted him a clear three feet into a stack of gilt chairs
near his own corner.

He didn't move, and the "Boilerplate" stared at him stupidly.

"Say, _you_ made him look at you," he said to Natica. "I didn't mean
to land on him blind."

But she did not heed him. She was among the gilt chairs, with Jack
Drayton's head upon her lap. The wheels of a cab stopped outside, and
the Hartopp was seizing her dazed lord and master. She had his coat
and bediamonded linen in her hands, and she clutched the
"Boiler-plate" firmly, leading him to the door.

"Say, Maisie, wait a minute," he protested. "I've got the swell's
college shirt on, and I didn't mean to land on him blind."

I opened the door, for she signaled with her eyes. "Come on, Jim,
there's a dear," she said. Between us we cajoled him into the coupe.
As I shut the door, she leaned to me and whispered: "Tell her for me
she's a cat--a cruel cat."

I handed the