Men are oddly and wonderfully made. Smith leapt from his chair just as his opponent had done a quarter of an hour before, strong, eager, ferocious. He tore across the ring at Carpentier, flung amazing blows at him, made desperate and frantic efforts to knock him out at the last minute. Carpentier was completely flabbergasted. He had never known anything like this to be possible. Smith’s recovery was marvellous, not less wonderful than that. And indeed Jeff Smith was within sight of victory throughout that desperate last round. He landed a right-hander with all his diminished strength, and the Frenchman crumpled up and fell forward to the boards. A little more might behind the blow, a shade more elasticity in the arm that sent the blow, and Carpentier must have been counted out. But that was the end. Carpentier rose just as the bell rang for time. And the referee gave the fight to him. The decision was not popular even among Frenchmen--which is surprising, but strengthening to one’s faith in human nature. CHAPTER XI JACK DEMPSEY AND GEORGES CARPENTIER Carpentier served in the French Flying Corps during the war, but though four years or more were taken from the best of his boxing life, he did not forget how to box. During the “gap” he engaged in no recorded contests, but no doubt did a certain amount of sparring. He had gained weight and lost no ground when the war ended. During 1919 and 1920, he fought five times, knocking out five men, including Dick Smith, Joe Beckett, and Battling Levinsky. Meanwhile, in July, 1919, Jack Dempsey had knocked out Jess Willard in three rounds for the World’s Championship, and Carpentier challenged him. “Jack Dempsey” is a _nom de guerre_, presumably taken (since there is as yet no copyright in names) from that older Jack Dempsey who began boxing in the early eighties, and lost the World’s Middle-weight title to Bob Fitzsimmons, who knocked him out in fifteen rounds in 1891. The new Jack Dempsey was born in 1895, and his record shows that until the end of 1920 he had fought upwards of sixty contests, fifty-eight of which he won, mainly by knocking his opponents out in the first or second rounds. He weighs 13½ stone, and stands just a shade under 6 feet. That is to say, he was a stone and a half heavier than Carpentier; much longer in reach. Dempsey is a very miracle of strength and hardness.