FITZSIMMONS. They are men.

MAUD.  But there is so much crookedness in the game.  One hears about it all the time.

FITZSIMMONS. There are crooked men in every business and profession.  The best fighters are not crooked.

MAUD.  I—­er—­I thought they all faked fights when there was enough in it.

FITZSIMMONS. Not the best ones.

MAUD.  Did you—­er—­ever fake a fight?

FITZSIMMONS. [Looking at her sharply, then speaking solemnly.] Yes. 
Once.

MAUD. [Shocked, speaking sadly.] And I always heard of you and thought of you as the one clean champion who never faked.

FITZSIMMONS. [Gently and seriously.] Let me tell you about it.  It was down in Australia.  I had just begun to fight my way up.  It was with old Bill Hobart out at Rushcutters Bay.  I threw the fight to him.

MAUD. [Repelled, disgusted.] Oh!  I could not have believed it of you.

FITZSIMMONS. Let me tell you about it.  Bill was an old fighter.  Not an old man, you know, but he’d been in the fighting game a long time.  He was about thirty-eight and a gamer man never entered the ring.  But he was in hard luck.  Younger fighters were coming up, and he was being crowded out.  At that time it wasn’t often he got a fight and the purses were small.  Besides it was a drought year in Australia.  You don’t know what that means.  It means that the rangers are starved.  It means that the sheep are starved and die by the millions.  It means that there is no money and no work, and that the men and women and kiddies starve.

Bill Hobart had a missus and three kids and at the time of his fight with me they were all starving.  They did not have enough to eat.  Do you understand?  They did not have enough to eat.  And Bill did not have enough to eat.  He trained on an empty stomach, which is no way to train you’ll admit.  During that drought year there was little enough money in the ring, but he had failed to get any fights.  He had worked at long-shoring, ditch-digging, coal-shovelling—­anything, to keep the life in the missus and the kiddies.  The trouble was the jobs didn’t hold out.  And there he was, matched to fight with me, behind in his rent, a tough old chopping-block, but weak from lack of food.  If he did not win the fight, the landlord was going to put them into the street.

MAUD.  But why would you want to fight with him in such weak condition?

FITZSIMMONS. I did not know.  I did not learn till at the ringside just before the fight.  It was in the dressing rooms, waiting our turn to go on.  Bill came out of his room, ready for the ring.  “Bill,” I said—­in fun, you know.  “Bill, I’ve got to do you to-night.”  He said nothing, but he looked at me with the saddest and most pitiful face I have ever seen.  He went back into his dressing room and sat down.

“Poor Bill!” one of my seconds said.  “He’s been fair starving these last weeks.  And I’ve got it straight, the landlord chucks him out if he loses to-night.”