“Eat him up!” he bellowed, and at every fresh hemorrhage from Mr. Flanagan he rocked and swayed in an ecstasy of enjoyment.  For three crimson rounds Pig Flanagan and Tom Evans continued their contest, but even a good bleeder must run dry eventually, and in the first half of the fourth round Pig took the count.

By this time the arena was swimming in Morris’ nauseated vision, while, as for the drummer on Frank’s right, he closed his eyes and wiped a clammy perspiration from his forehead.  The club meeting proceeded, however, despite the stomachs of its weaker members, and the next bout commenced with a rush.  It was advertised in advance by Morris’ neighboring seatholders as a scientific contest, but in pugilism, as in surgery, science is often gory.  In this instance a scientific white man hit a colored savant squarely on the nose, with the inevitable sanguinary result, and as though by a prearranged signal Morris and the drummer on Walsh’s right started for the door.  In vain did Walsh seize his neighbor by the coat-tail.  The latter shook himself loose, and he and Morris reached the sidewalk together.

“T’phooie!” said the drummer.  “That’s an amusement for five dollars.”

Morris wiped his face and gasped like a landed fish.  At length he recovered his composure.  “I seen you sitting next to Walsh,” he said.

The drummer nodded.  “He didn’t want me to go,” he replied.  “He said we come together and we should go together, but I told him I would wait for him till it was over.  Him and that other fellow seem to enjoy it.”

“Some people has got funny idees of a good time,” Morris commented.

“That’s an idee for a loafer,” said the drummer.  “For my part I like it more refined.”

“I believe you,” Morris replied.  “Might you would come and take a cup of coffee with me, maybe?”

He indicated a bathbrick dairy restaurant on the opposite side of the street.

“Much obliged,” the drummer replied, “but I got to go out of town to-morrow, and coffee keeps me awake.  I think I’ll wait here for about half an hour, and if Walsh and his friends don’t come out by then I guess I’ll go home.”

Morris hesitated.  A sense of duty demanded that he stay and see the matter through, since his newly-made acquaintance with the tertium quid of Walsh’s little party might lead to an introduction to the big man, and for the rest Morris trusted to his own salesmanship.  But the drummer settled the matter for him.

“On second thought,” he said, “I guess I won’t wait.  Why should I bother with a couple like them?  If you’re going downtown on the L I’ll go with you.”

Together they walked to the Manhattan terminal of the Third Avenue road and discussed the features of the disgusting spectacle they had just witnessed.  In going over its details they found sufficient conversation to cover the journey to One Hundred and Sixteenth Street, where Morris alighted.  When he descended to the street it occurred to him for the first time that he had omitted to learn both the name and line of business of his new-found friend.