to talk to Jefferies, and he paused to do so. It is most surely true that you cannot do two things at once when one of them is fighting. I don’t know what Fitzsimmons said, but we may be pretty sure that his words were words of scorn. “Mouth-fighting,” as it is called, is a more foolish than reprehensible practice. To stand and invent rude epithets for your antagonist, to shower invective upon him, to deride his method of boxing, or to impugn his sportsmanship is so very far beside the point--especially the point of the jaw, which is the real bone of contention. And in order to talk Fitzsimmons necessarily laid aside his strict vigilance. And Jefferies, who wasn’t always slow, took a most legitimate advantage and swung his left at long range at his opponent’s stomach. It was, on the whole, a lucky blow, for it caught Fitzsimmons just beneath the breast-bone at that point which we call the “mark.” And the Cornishman, for once, was taken unawares: the blow made him gasp, and it made him tuck in his stomach instinctively, with the result of bringing his head forward and down. Jefferies’s huge left swung back and forward, again, catching him full on the jaw. And once again Fitzsimmons knees gave, his face went ashen gray, his body sank forward ... seven, eight, nine--Out! [Illustration: Bob Fitzsimmons and James J. Corbett. (A Caricature.)] After this defeat Fitzsimmons fought about ten other battles, though four of them hardly count, as they took place in those states of the American Union where only short contests are allowed, and failing a knock-out no decision must be given by the referee. Such contests seem to us quite pointless. If men are giving an exhibition of scientific boxing, as for charity or as on one occasion or another they often do in this and other countries, why should it not be called an exhibition, even if the sparring partners are heavily paid for that purpose? For, of course, the tendency in No-Decision contests is for the men to “go easy” and not to try to knock each other out. And if men are boxing their best so far as science goes and yet not giving their physical best to the affair, the whole event is apt to be meaningless. Besides, science and physique are intermingled. A man is not boxing his best who doesn’t try to finish his opponent as speedily as possible, who doesn’t try, that is, to assert his superiority of combined force and skill. Fitzsimmons won battles again, and lost them again. And he went on fighting till 1914--not very long before his death, at the age of fifty-four or so. CHAPTER V TOMMY BURNS AND JACK JOHNSON