the fact.
He was a man in private life of astonishingly even temper. The only
thing that appeared to have the power to ruffle him to the slightest
extent was the contemplation of what he described as the bunch of
cheeses who pretended to fight nowadays. He would have considered it a
privilege, it seemed, to be allowed to encounter all the middle-weights
in the country in one ring in a single night without training. But it
appeared that he had promised his mother to quit, and he had quit.
Steve's mother was an old lady who in her day had been the best
washerwoman on Cherry Hill. She was, moreover, completely lacking in
all the qualities which go to make up the patroness of sport. Steve had
been injudicious enough to pay her a visit the day after his celebrated
unpleasantness with that rugged warrior, Pat O'Flaherty (ne
Smith), and, though he had knocked Pat out midway through the second
round, he bore away from the arena a black eye of such a startling
richness that old Mrs. Dingle had refused to be comforted until he had
promised never to enter the ring again. Which, as Steve said, had come
pretty hard, he being a man who would rather be a water-bucket in a
ring than a president outside it.
But he had given the promise, and kept it, leaving the field to the
above-mentioned bunch of cheeses. There were times when the temptation
to knock the head off Battling Dick this and Fighting Jack that became
almost agony, but he never yielded to it. All of which suggests that
Steve was a man of character, as indeed he was.
Bailey, entering the gymnasium, found Steve already there, punching
the bag with a force and precision which showed that the bunch of
cheeses ought to have been highly grateful to Mrs. Dingle for her
anti-pugilistic prejudices.
'Good morning, Dingle,' said Bailey precisely.
Steve nodded. Bailey began to don his gymnasium costume. Steve gave the
ball a final punch and turned to him. He was a young man who gave the
impression of being, in a literal sense, perfectly square. This was due
to the breadth of his shoulders, which was quite out of proportion to
his height. His chest was extraordinarily deep, and his stomach and
waist small, so that to the observer seeing him for the first time in
boxing trunks, he seemed to begin as a big man and, half-way down,
change his mind and become a small one.
His arms, which were unusually long and thick, hung down nearly to his
knees and were decorated throughout with knobs and ridges of muscle
that popped up and down and in and out as he moved, in a manner both
fascinating and frightening. His face increased the illusion of
squareness, for he had thick, straight eyebrows, a straight mouth, and
a chin of almost the minimum degree of roundness. He inspected Bailey
with a pair of brilliant brown eyes which no detail of his appearance
could escape. And Bailey, that morning, as has been said, was not
looking his best.
'You're lookin' kind o' sick, bo,' was Steve's comment. 'I guess you
was hittin' it up with the gang last night in one of them lobster
parlours.'
