As she looked again at the roped square, she saw that in the interval there had hopped into the enclosure her partner of the dance in the park pavilion, Nick Cluett, a boxer of the kind that is born and not made. Hither and thither, slim and lithe in his gay-colored bath-robe, he moved--stamping the floor here and there with a testing heel, trying the tautness of the ropes, saying nothing, but noticing everything. "They can't never put nothin' over on Nicky," commented Miss Yockley, more than generous with her negatives when she wanted to be emphatic. "They used to lay traps for him, when they seen how he was comin' on in the boxing game--for some of these here so-called 'sports' is the meanest, trickiest skates this side of the Hot Place. But after Nick showed up a couple o' them kind of low-down promoters, by bawling them out right in front of the audience, so's everybody could get a line on them, they let up on their monkey-work. They don't try nothin' now; but Nick, he always gives everything the onct-over, to be on the safe side." Apparently everything was in order in the present case; for Cluett, his hands thrust in the pockets of his bath-robe, stepped to the centre of the roped space to speak to the referee and to Masterman, his manager. Facing him, on the referee's left, stood the man who was to be his first opponent--a stocky fellow, whose calves, showing underneath the frayed edge of the old dressing-gown he wore, were more those of a football-player than a boxer. "Nothin' but a big ox," said Miss Yockley, with a sniff; "Nick'll play with him a little, and then push him over. The gink will have some bother fallin' down, with them size feet. Maybe he'll go to sleep standin' up. Funny things happens in the ring sometimes, kiddo." In a moment or two, the fighters stepped back to their corners, threw off their wraps, and stood forth in abbreviated trunks. It was seen that the build of Cluett's opponent bore out the promise of his calves. He was heavy-muscled and broad of chest; thick-necked, and with a hard-looking chin that moved to the chewing of gum. About the physique of Cluett himself, as he stood at ease, his arms lightly hanging, there was nothing remarkable, except that one shoulder seemed to be a little lower than the other. His muscles flowed along his limbs instead of standing out in knots and ridges. Standing unposed, with his perennial smile and his almost sleepy expression of eye, he looked like a somewhat indolent schoolboy, about to take a dip in a peaceful swimming-pool. "That big thing over in the other chair will hurt him," said Daisy, anxiously; "why don't they make the big fellow take somebody his own size?" "Don't talk," said Miss Yockley, briefly, "just sit still and watch. It ain't our Nick that's going to get hurt, honey."