nothin' gettin'
punished but the gloves.

"Time!" says I, and leads Sylvie over to a chair. He was puffin' some,
but outside of that he was as good as new. "Good blockin', old man,"
says I. "You're doin' fine. Keep that up and you'll be all right."

"Think so?" says he, reachin' for the towel.

The second spasm starts off different. Curlylocks seems to be more
awake than he was, and the first thing we knows he's fiddlin' for an
openin' in the good old fashioned way.

"And there's where you lose out, son," thinks I.

I hadn't got through thinkin' before things begun happenin'. Sylvie
seems to unlimber from the waist up, and his arms acted like he'd let
out an extra link in 'em. Funny I hadn't noticed that reach of his
before. For a second or so he only steps around Chester, shootin' out
first one glove and then the other, and plantin' little love pats on
different parts of him, as if he was locatin' the right spots.

Chetty don't like havin' his bumps felt of that way, and comes back
with a left swing followed by an upper cut. They was both a little
wild, and they didn't connect. That wa'n't the worst of it, though.
Before he's through with that foolishness Sylvie turns them long arms
of his into a rapid fire battery, and his mitts begin to touch up them
spots he's picked out at the rate of about a hundred bull's eyes to the
minute. It was bing--bing--bing--biff!--with Chetty's arms swingin'
wide, and his block rockin', and his breath comin' short, and his knees
gettin' as wabbly as a new boy speakin' a piece. Before I can call the
round Curlylocks has put the steam into a jaw punch that sends Chester
to the mat as hard as though he'd been dropped out of a window.

"Is--is it all over?" says Chetty when he comes to, a couple of minutes
later.

"If you leave it to me," says I, "I should say it was; unless Mr.
What's-his-name here wants to try that same bunch of tricks on me. How
about it?"

"Much obliged, professor," says Curlylocks, givin' a last hitch to his
white tie; "but I've seen you in the ring."

"Well," says I, "I've heard you recite po'try; so we're even. But say,
you make a whole lot better showin' in my line than I would in yours,
and if you ever need a backer in either, just call on me."

We shakes hands on that; and then Chetty comes to the front, man
fashion, with his flipper out, too. That starts the reunion, and when
I leaves 'em, about one A. M., the Scotch and ginger ale tid