Not a John L. Sullivan
I have never taken any interest in pugilism since my schoolboy days.
I studied it once then, with highly unsatisfactory results.
There was a boy called Bill at the school where I imbibed my knowledge, who was the bane of my existence. He used to take liberties with my marbles, and make free with my pegtops, and fly his kites with my string, and knock me down and sit on me when I remonstrated.
I thirsted for his blood.
I brought my father’s bulldog to take my part in a quarrel. It took my part—in fact, it took several parts of me.
I summoned re-enforcements in the shape of my little brother. Bill piled my little brother on top of me, and wanted more of the family to complete the structure.
Then I vowed that I would be avenged, and bought a sixpenny hand-book of boxing, and went in for a study of that literary masterpiece. It was illustrated with striking diagrams. Figure 1,—the position. Figure 2,—one for his nob. Figure 3,—the body blow. Figure 4,—the return. Figure 5,—the upper cut. Figure 6,—the cross-counter.
I devoured the instructions, and I practised the attitudes for weeks, till I mastered both so completely that I was a walking encyclopedia of P. R. theory, and I had only to be asked for Figure 1, or 3, or 4, or whatever I was desired, and I posed so statuesquely correct that I could have been photographed to illustrate “Fistiana.”
But I held my secret, and bided my time, and submitted to Bill’s insults with the glowing consciousness of approaching triumph, while I developed my newly acquired science in my bedroom on the pillows, and administered “one-two’s” in the ribs to the hair mattress, and “propped” the bolsters, and sparred at my shadow on the wall, and showered rib-benders and hot ’uns in the bread-basket on imaginary Bills till I felt like a conquering hero.
At last I decided that the hour of Fate had struck; the supreme moment had arrived for squelching Bill; and one day, when he had helped himself to my lunch, and grumbled at its scantity, I invited him to accompany me when school was over to a sequestered vale, where I might punch his head.
He came.
I gave my hand-book to my brother Joe, and told him to sing out the proper figures for the various stages of the battle.
I made all my preparations in the orthodox way. I threw my cap into the improvised ring, tied a handkerchief for a belt round my waist, and wanted to shake hands a la Sullivan and Kilrain, but Bill declined.
Then I struck Figure 1, the position, and Bill struck another figure—which happened to be me.
“Figure 2,” shouted Joe, “one for his nob.” I made some mistake in this, because it resulted in two or three for my nob, and while I was trying to get my head under my arms, out of the road, “Figure 3,” yelled Joe, “the body blow!” but that infernal Bill didn’t fight according to the regulations at all; for before I got Figure 3 into operation, something came bang against my teeth, and I tried to dig my grave in the ground with the back of my head.
I wanted to consider the situation a little longer when they called “Time,” but Joe whispered that Figure 4 was sure to fetch him. All I had to do was to wait till he let out, and then, parrying the blow with my left, send the right into his potato trap, and settle him. Well, Bill soon let out, and Joe screeched “Figure 4!” and I don’t know where I sent my right, but my nose encountered both his fists one after the other in a way that wasn’t in the book at all, and when Joe roared “Figure 5, try 5!” I could only gasp—“He won’t let me,” before there was an earthquake somewhere, and I was thrown three or four yards away, and found myself trying to swallow all my front teeth.
I was so disgusted that when they called “Time” again, I wouldn’t listen to the voice of the tempters, and wanted to go to sleep on the green sward, and when Joe came and wished me to illustrate a few more diagrams, I could have poisoned him. I don’t believe in the manly art.