Morris shrugged his shoulders.

“Anyhow, Abe,” he said, “I don’t see that you got any kick coming, because I’m going to give them tickets to you and Rosie, Abe, and youse two can take in the show.”

“And where are you going, Mawruss?”

“Me?” Morris replied.  “I’m going to a prize-fighting, Abe.  I don’t give up so easy as all that.”

On his way home that night Morris consulted an evening paper, and when he turned to the sporting page he found the upper halves of seven columns effaced by a huge illustration executed in the best style of Jig, the Sporting Cartoonist.  In the left-hand corner crouched Slogger Atkins, the English lightweight, while opposite to him in the right-hand corner stood Young Kilrain, poised in an attitude of defense.  Underneath was the legend, “The Contestants in Tomorrow Night’s Battle.”  By reference to Jig’s column Morris ascertained that the scene of the fight would be at the Polygon Club’s new arena in the vicinity of Harlem Bridge, and at half past eight Saturday night he alighted from a Third Avenue L train at One Hundred and Twenty-ninth Street and followed the crowd that poured over the bridge.

It was nine o’clock before Morris gained admission to the huge frame structure that housed the arena of the Polygon Club.  Having just paid five dollars as a condition precedent to membership in good standing, he took his seat amid a dense fog of tobacco smoke and peered around him for Frank Walsh and his customer.  At length he discerned Walsh’s stalwart figure at the right hand of a veritable giant, whose square jaw and tip-tilted nose would have proclaimed the customer, even though Walsh had not assiduously plied him with cigars and engaged him continually in animated conversation.  They were seated well down toward the ring, while Morris found a place directly opposite them and watched their every movement.  When they laughed Morris scowled, and once when the big man slapped his thigh in uproarious appreciation of one of Walsh’s stories Morris fairly turned green with envy.

Morris watched with a jaundiced eye the manner in which Frank Walsh radiated good humor.  Not only did Walsh hand out cigars to the big man, but also he proffered them to the person who sat next to him on the other side.  This man Morris recognized as the drummer who had been in Wasserbauer’s with Frank on the previous day.

“Letting him in on it, too,” Morris said to himself.  “What show do I stand?”

The first of the preliminary bouts began.  The combatants were announced as Pig Flanagan and Tom Evans, the Welsh coal-miner.  It seemed to Morris that he had seen Evans somewhere before, but as this was his initiation into the realms of pugilism he concluded that it was merely a chance resemblance and dismissed the matter from his mind.

The opening bout more than realized Morris’ conception of the sport’s brutality, for Pig Flanagan was what the cognoscenti call a good bleeder, and during the first second of the fight he fulfilled his reputation at the instance of a light tap from his opponent’s left.  There are some people who cannot stand the sight of blood; Morris was one of them, and the drummer on Frank Walsh’s right was another.  Both he and Morris turned pale, but the big man on Walsh’s left roared his approbation.