Just before Christmas of 1908, Fitzsimmons came to England on a music-hall tour. He was due to arrive in London one Sunday afternoon, and it occurred to me to meet him at the station and ask him to box with me. It would be an interesting experience. I went to St. Pancras, and waited until the regular interviewers had finished with him. I was not anxious for any one to overhear my curious request. Just as he was getting into a taxi with his manager, I asked him if he would put on the gloves with me that night. He needed a good deal of persuading, but in a slow, unsmiling way he was a good-natured fellow, and after a while he consented. Accordingly we met later on in a private room at the National Sporting Club, and boxed two rounds. The only other person present (it being Sunday night, the club was, officially, closed) was Fitzsimmons’s manager. It is not affectation to describe this encounter as a real pleasure. Making due allowance for the self-complacency an amateur (in all senses of that misused word) would feel at taking on a great champion, I can honestly say that I enjoyed those two rounds for their own sakes. Of course, I knew perfectly well that he wouldn’t “eat” me; but quite apart from any competitive spirit, which, in this case would have been absurd, boxing is a definitely enjoyable pastime. I emerged from the encounter with a black eye, and--for the first time in my life--a bleeding nose, but my experience had been extremely interesting. Fitzsimmons was taller than I, much heavier, and far longer in the arm, but I found him quite easy to hit. I suppose I can’t quite exclude the “competitive spirit” after all, let alone my amateur self-complacency, for I was delighted at sending in one really hard straight left which took Fitzsimmons on the mouth and sent his head right back. If I say, with all diffidence, that it was a respectable blow, it is only to emphasise the fact that my opponent’s head, driven back, sprang forward again exactly like a steel spring. In fact, you could always hit Fitzsimmons, but it wanted a Jefferies to hurt him, as we shall see later on. He was an awkwardly made man, hard and angular, with a back and shoulders phenomenally developed. His very long arms may be compared to wire-bound bamboo, and unlike the arms of heroes in fictitious boxing stories, with no biceps to speak of and indeed no special show of muscle at all. Fitzsimmons was not a first-rate boxer, because he had never learned to defend himself, but he had an almost infinite capacity for taking punishment, which was his title to genius in the ring. The great fight between Fitzsimmons and Corbett for the championship took place at Carson City, Nevada, on March 17th, 1897. No love was lost between the two men, who refused to shake hands at the beginning. Bad feeling in sport is, no doubt, deplorable, but as in this case it does not necessarily spoil sport.