Tom had lost patience when he saw Paddy staggering like a bullock under an axe, and though I told him we could do nothing to help, he insisted we should at least be with the rest of the party. So the minute the bell rang for the end of the round, we crowded along the seats, and hurrying through the door, I was just in time to reach Paddy's corner before he started in for the third and last round. Now, of all men on earth Paddy believed in me; Jim and Harry were all right, and doing all possible for him, but when he felt my hand on his arm, and heard my whisper in his ears, his heart, almost gone, came back to him. He turned his swollen face up to me, and with a new light in his eyes he said, "Tell me what I'll do, Misther Brown; tell me, darlin', an' I'll lick the nager yet." There was something wonderfully pathetic in his blind confidence, and I never cared so much for the big-hearted Irishman as I did that minute. To tell the truth, I had been half willing to see him knocked out after his foolish persistence against my advice. Then again I knew it was not at all a serious matter to one with his strength and vitality, and a dash of cold water would leave him no worse memories than a sore head and a few bruises. But after his appeal I felt very different. I racked my brain, but though I had been studying his opponent from the beginning, trying to find his weak point, he was so very shifty on his feet, and Paddy was so deathly slow, I could think of nothing. Pat had been swinging at his opponent's head, from the very start, the same old blow, landing never. He had not tried for the body once, and I made up my mind just before the bell rang, and whispered, "Never mind his top-knot, Paddy; wait until he leads, then step in, and hit him in the ribs; and hit him hard." The third round started much like the others, but now on Paddy's face was not the foolish smile of the first, nor the dubious look of the second. "Misther Brown" had told him what to do, he was supremely confident in my wisdom, and had no doubt of the result. His mouth was firm and his eyes clear as he faced his opponent and waited for his opportunity. I could see that Johnson did not half like the change. He was altered too, his face had grown cruel, his eyes fierce, and he came in like a tiger crouching for a spring. The joke was all gone out of the game now; he must knock Paddy out in the next three minutes or the fifty dollars would be forfeited. Nothing but a blow in the right spot would be of any use, and it must have the full swing of the body behind it. I could see plainly by his high guard that he feared nothing from Paddy but a swing on the head, and I doubt if he thought of much else beside how he could land on the point of Paddy's jaw just the right blow. As I knelt between Jim and Harry, peering through the ropes, I made up my mind that Paddy had good enough advice if he knew how to use it.