College sports -- Fiction; Short stories, American; Sports stories; Track and field -- Fiction
The latter shaped beautifully. After his first surprise was over he grew
serious, stepped in, led lightly, landing on Pat's nose, and when Paddy,
after a belated duck, swung a terrific blow at his opponent, he found
him well out of reach. It was just as I expected: Johnson could hit
Paddy when and where he pleased. He played with him as a cat would with
a mouse. He made a punching-bag of him, hit and got away. He ducked, he
countered, he dodged, he swung on Pat's jaw. He side-stepped, and tapped
him lightly; he uppercut him when he made a bull rush, so that his head
lifted as if on a hinge. He hooked him with right and left, and played
the "devil's tattoo" all over his body, ending with a rib-roaster that
made even Paddy sigh. In short, when Patrick O'Malley, our "Knight of
the Rake and Roller," took his seat at the end of the first round his
smile was gone, and he looked like a man in a trance.
Johnson had hit hard enough to have put most men to sleep, but on
Paddy's tough anatomy had made no serious impression, after all. Pat's
right eye was in a fair way to close, and his face looked puffy and his
neck sore, but he was as strong as ever, and his courage as good, though
he probably would have been willing to admit that over the picnic aspect
of the occasion there had come a cloud. Harry and Jim got at work at him
with sponge and towel the minute he took his seat. A very artistic
exhibition they gave, and no doubt Jim's advice which he whispered was
very good, but there was nothing before Paddy but a "knock-out" unless
the unexpected happened.
Johnson was without a mark, and I question whether he had been hit at
all. He took his drink, smiled up at his handlers as they worked the
cool sponge over his hot chest and arms, and leaned back on the ropes
with an air of extreme contentment.
When the bell rang for the second round Paddy came up in good condition,
but with a somewhat dubious expression on his countenance, and he kept
his left a little lower, ready to stop some of the straight punches he
had accepted so generously in the first round. He did not swing quite as
wildly as before, and although hit harder, the blows did not land quite
as often. In the last half-minute, however, Johnson cut loose, and
Paddy's broad face and thick neck were visited in a savage manner. The
bell barely saved him, for the poor fellow was fairly smothered with
blows, and yet he stood up to his punishment without flinching, and
fought back as best he could.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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