The third event was the Standing High Jump; and B.J. and the other Kingstonians were badly outclassed here.  Their efforts to clear the bar compared with that of the Trojans as the soaring of an elephant compares with the flight of a butterfly.

Punk was the only Lakerimmer on the team that attempted to win glory on the flying-rings, but he and his brother Kingstonians suffered a like humiliation with the standing high-jumpers.

The clerk of the course and the referees were now seen to be running hither and yon in great excitement.  A long delay and much putting of heads together ensued, to the great mystification of the audience.  At length, just as a number of small boys in the gallery had begun to stamp their feet in military time and whistle their indignation, the official announcer officially announced that there had been a slight hitch in the proceedings.

“I have to explain,” he yelled in his gentlest manner, “that two of the boxers have failed to turn up.  Both have excellent excuses and doctors’ certificates to account for their absence, but we have unfortunately to confess that the Kingston heavy-weight and the Troy feather-weight are incapacitated for the present.  The feather-weight from Kingston, however, is a good enough sport to express a willingness to box, for points, with the heavy-weight from Troy.  While this match will look a little unusual owing to the difference in size of the two opponents, it will be scientific enough, we have no doubt, to make it interesting as well as picturesque.”

As usual, the audience, not knowing what else to say, applauded very cordially.

And now the heavy-weight from Troy, one Jaynes, appeared upon the scene with his second.  There was no roped-off space, but only an imaginary “ring,” which was, as usual, a square—­of about twenty-four feet each way.

Jaynes was just barely qualified as a heavy-weight, being only a trifle over one hundred and fifty-eight pounds.  But he overshadowed little Bobbles as the giants overshadowed Jack the Giant-killer.

Bobbles, while he was diminutive compared with Jaynes, was yet rather tall and wiry for his light weight, and had an unusually long reach for one of his size.  He regretted now the great pains he had taken to train down to feather-weight weight.  For when he had stepped on the scales in the gymnasium, the day before he had started for Troy, he found that he was three pounds over the necessary hundred and fifteen.  So he had put on three sweaters, two pairs of trousers, and his football knickers, and run around the track for fully four miles, until he was in doubt as to whether he was a liquid or a solid body.  Then he had fallen into a hot bath, and jumped from that into a cold shower, and had then been rubbed down by some of his faithful Lakerim friends with a pail of rock-salt to harden his muscles.  At Troy, too, he had continued these tactics, and found, to his delight, when he weighed in, that he just tipped the scales at one hundred and fifteen.  And now he was matched to fight with a heavy-weight, and every pound he had sweat off would have been an advantage to him!  Yet, at any rate, it was not a fight to a finish, but only for points, and he counted upon his agility to save him from the rushes and the major tactics of the larger man.