The fight was very nearly over. One man was covering up with evident caution; his legs were almost giving way beneath him. The other was Johnny Winter, and Johnny was standing away and waiting for his opening. They had said that he was too old. They had even thought it pathetically sad that a man who, in his prime, had been unbeaten champion at his weight, should be lured back to the ring after three years away from it to fight again. Some had supposed it was the bombast of the man who was at the top of the tree, and who claimed that not even Johnny Winter could have defeated him, that had tempted the master boxer of his day out of retirement. Others argued that the size of the purse that was up for competition had had the most to do with it. And they had all agreed that Johnny was foolish to have yielded to temptation. There was never a boxer in all the world who, when his day was passed, came back to the ring and fought again just as he had used to fight in his own hey-day.
So they had said. But all his life Johnny had known himself better than any of his friends had ever been allowed to know him, and he had believed that he was not yet too completely old to win one last fight. Now he had proved it. It was the fourteenth round and his man was done. Already Johnny was sparring for his final opening. It came suddenly. The other man uncovered and struck out with his 231right. In the twinkling of an eye Johnny had slipped in and swung up his uppercut with deadly accuracy. It landed with resounding force. The man reeled and fell. There came ten seconds of excited wonder. Then he was out; and the air was thunderous with a long crash of cheering for that quiet-mannered little man with the wispy hair and the patient, deep-set eyes who had undertaken to defend his name against a young man in the prime of life, and had won.
His seconds darted to Johnny’s side and lifted him up joyously in their arms. From every seat near by men had risen on to their toes and were reaching for his hand. Friends were elbowing their way towards him. In a moment they had closed round and he was hidden from sight. They crowded about him as he made for the gangway and went quickly through the cheering crowd that was blocking the way. And all the while those who were nearest to him could see that his expression never really altered. From the first round to the last he had fought with a clean and modest gallantry that was a natural part of him. Now that he had won he wanted only to escape from all the inevitable lionising that so troubled him. For a while he suffered them patiently, but he was longing to be allowed to go to his bath in peace. He had done merely what he had set out to do. Their praise was kindly meant, but he would be far happier alone.
So at last they let him by and he went gratefully into the dressing-room, said just a few quiet words to those old-timers who were waiting there to tend him, and passed into privacy.
When, therefore, a little boy came to the door of the dressing-room and asked for him, they shook their heads.
“Better go away, sonny. He won’t want to give no autograph. He just don’t want to be fussed. 232He’s fought his fight. You let him have his quiet sit-down. That’s worth more to Johnny than his picture rights.”
The little boy looked round them gravely.
“Would you just give him this?” he said at length. “I know he’ll see me. He’ll be angry if you don’t tell him I’m here.”
He waited a moment anxiously, holding the proffered envelope in his hand with an air of appeal. At last a man with a square head, closely shaven, and a perfect imitation of a cauliflower clinging to the side of it, reached out his hand.
“What is it?” he demanded. “What’s your name?”
“If you’ll just give him that,” said the little boy, “he’ll know.”
The man went slowly away, and when he came back his countenance wore an expression of complete astonishment.
“You’re to go in and see him,” he said resignedly. “And I’d like to know who you be. It’s the first time he’s ever said ‘Yes.’”
The little boy went quickly across the room and into the little cabin at the farthermost end. Johnny Winter was sitting down, and as the little boy came in, the man who had been tubbing his legs moved out of the way and disappeared. Then Johnny swathed a dressing-gown about him and stood up. He was frowning, and he spoke vexedly.
“Bobbie,” he said, “if I had thought you would have done a thing like this I would have made you promise. But I trusted you.”
Bobbie Carr stood proudly and faced him.
“I’ve never seen you fight in all my life,” said he. “I’ve never been allowed. And this is the last chance I should ever have. You taught me how to box, but you never let me see you fight in earnest. Now I have and I’m satisfied.”
233His father was looking at him with extraordinary sorrow.
“You were always ashamed that I should see you fight. You said that I should get wrong ideas. I’m not ashamed. I’m proud.”
His father made a quick movement with his hand.
“You’ve never understood. I’ve had to think for you. All my life I meant you to go to a Public School and mix with the sons of gentlemen. I meant you to have the chance to become what I have never been. I’ve saved and worked for your education. I meant you to be a gentleman, and if the boys at your school or the masters there ever knew that you were the son of a bruiser—they’d call it a smudge on your name. That’s why I made you promise. It had to be our secret. And so that no one that you mix with should ever see you with me at the ringside, I’ve never let you come to see me fight. I retired before you ever went to Harley to make quite sure. But lately I’ve been afraid. I began to wonder if I had saved enough, after all, to give you a fair chance. And then they offered this purse, bigger than any I’d ever fought for in my life, if I’d come back. I never imagined for a moment that you would come here to see me. I thought you were safe at school. But you’ve come. You haven’t played the game. The secret will be out. Somebody is bound to have seen you. You would be very conspicuous in a Harley cap. When you go back to school they’ll know. It’s what I’ve always been afraid of. They——”
“I’m not going back,” said Bobbie quietly.
His father stared at him with glassy eyes.
“Not going back? Why? What’s happened? You haven’t been expelled?”
“No. But I’m not going back to a place where I have to be ashamed of my father.”
234Johnny took hold of his arm.
“Who did you ask if you could come?” he demanded. “What reason did you give? Does your Headmaster know that you came to see your father fight for money?”
“I didn’t ask,” said Bobbie. “I ran away.”
There was a moment’s heavy silence.
“You ran away?” his father said at last. “How? Who paid your fare?”
“I did. You gave me much too much money. You thought I needed far more than I did. I never spent half of it. I saved it up; and it brought me here and paid for my seat.”
His father was staring at him dully, but now his eyes lit up again with sudden light.
“Nobody knows?” he said. “Are you sure? If that’s true we can get you back there to-night, perhaps, and they’ll never know you came. If nobody has seen you here, perhaps——”
“I’m not going back,” said Bobbie.
His father’s eyes met his evenly.
“You mean,” said he at last, “that you never want to be a gentleman? Is it that the dearest wish I have means nothing to you at all?”
“I’ll go to another school if you like,” said Bobbie in a small voice, “but I can’t go back to Harley. There’s somebody there who knows. He holds it over my head and makes me do things. It’s awful. I—I can’t go back.”
“Somebody knows?” His father was looking at him keenly. “Why have you never told me? Who knows?”
“Coles is there.”
For a moment his father was silent. He stood perfectly still, as a man will who is suddenly stricken with ill news. And at last his hands moved to his dressing-gown.
“I’ll get dressed. We’ll get away from here. 235Sit down for a moment. Tell me while I dress. What has he made you do?”
Bobbie began to talk. The secrets came out one by one.
“This afternoon,” said Bobbie, “I had to get him another bottle. And when I’d got it I came away by the train at seven o’clock. I was seen coming out. I can’t go back. If they’ve found out that I came up here I shall be expelled. And if they haven’t found out, and I managed to get in, then I shall have to go on doing whatever Coles tells me to.” He paused. “Next term,” he said presently, “Coles expects to be captain of boxing. How could I enjoy boxing with him as captain? Let me go to another school, father. Somewhere where nobody need know at all if you don’t want them to, but not to a place where I have to keep the secret by being contemptible.”
His father was dressed and he did not look at him at all. He just took his arm and began to lead him out through the crowded room. Everywhere men were calling to him. Johnny took no notice. He just made a gesture of farewell and went out into the street with Bobbie.
“There may be a means,” he said at last. “Perhaps I can think it out. It’s a terrible thing to run away. You’ll have to go back. If none of the masters know you came there may be a way to get you back. Who was it saw you leave?”
“It’s a boy who wouldn’t tell,” said Bobbie. “But I——”
He stopped abruptly. A man had come upon them from behind, and now his hand reached out and was resting upon Bobbie’s shoulder.
Bobbie turned with a start, and as he looked up he knew the sudden shock of a man ducked suddenly in cold water. For the first time since he had left the school he felt the touch of guilt, not for his father, but 236because by a freak of Fate it was Mr Nicholson who had found him out. Toby it was who stood looking down at him. He knew as well as any boy that it was through Toby’s influence that the fellows at Harley had been persuaded to stick it out without making a cock-shy of the school. And finding him unexpectedly at liberty in London, Toby would not understand the truth. He would think that he, Bobbie Carr, had been the only boy in Harley who had given in.
There was a short dramatic silence. Then, as Bobbie looked up once again, wondering whether he ought to speak or whether to leave this to his father, he noticed a most remarkable fact—i.e. Toby was smiling. What made this more remarkable was that he was smiling not at him but, funnily enough, at that quiet-mannered little man, his father. And as B............