Holding the arm in the same position, I settled myself. The pain to the poor chap must have been something fearful, for every muscle and tendon was stretched to the cracking point. His breath came and went in sharp hisses; but he gave no other sign. My heat cooled, though, as I look back on it, far too slowly. Suddenly I arose and flung him from me. He rolled over on his back, and lay, his eyes half closed, breathing deeply. We must have been a sweet sight, we two young barbarians--myself marked and swollen and bloody, he with one eye puffed, and pale as death. My roommates, absolutely fascinated, did not stir. The tableau lasted only the fraction of a minute, after all. Then abruptly Talbot Ward sat up. He grinned up at me with his characteristic momentary flash of teeth. "I told you you couldn't lick me," said he. I stared at him in astonishment. "Licked? Why, I had you cold!" "You had not." "I'd have broken your arm, if I had gone any farther." "Well, why didn't you?" I stared into his eyes blankly. "Would you have done it?" I asked, in a sudden flash of illumination. "Why, of course," said he, with a faint contempt, as he arose. "Why did you hit me at first, as you did? You gave me no warning whatever." "Do you get any warning in a real fight?" I could not controvert this; and yet uneasily, vaguely, I felt there must be a fallacy somewhere. I had been told and not told, what should, or should not, be done, in an affair that apparently could have no rules, and yet had distinctions as to fair and unfair, some of which were explained and some left as obvious. I felt somewhat confused. But often in my later experience with Talbot Ward I felt just that way, so in retrospect it does not strike me so forcibly as it did at that time. "But you're a wonder! a perfect wonder!" Ward was saying. Then we all became aware of a knocking and a rattling at the door. It must have been going on for some time. "If you don't open, I'll get the police! I promise you, I'll get the police!" the voice of our landlady was saying. We looked at each other aghast. "I suppose we must have been making a little noise," conceded Talbot Ward. Noise! It must have sounded as though the house were coming down. Our ordinary little boxing matches were nothing to it. Ward threw his military cape around his shoulders, and sank back into a seat beneath the window. I put on an overcoat. One of the boys let her in.