As this dislike commences to fire incipiently, he recalls the picture of Mollie and little Davy of the crutch. Mike remembers that it is after ten o’clock, and his two treasures must be deep in sleep. Then he considers of Christmas, now but a day away; and of the money so necessary to the full pleasure of his sleeping Mollie and little Davy. As those home-visions come to Mike, and his antipathy to the Terror mounting to its height, the grim impulse claims him to attack. Tigerlike he steps back to get his distance; then he springs forward. It is too quickly done for eye to follow. The Terror’s guard is opened by a feint; and next like a flash Mike’s left shoots cleanly in. There is a sharp “spank!” as the six-ounce glove finds the Terror’s jaw; that person goes down like an oak that is felled. As he falls, Mike’s right starts with a crash for the heart. But there is no need: Mike stops the full blow midway--a feat without a mate in boxing. The Terror lies as one without life. “W’y didn’t you let ’im ’ave your right like you started, laddy?” screams the old Cockney, as Mike walks towards his corner. Mike laughs in his way of gentle, soft goodnature, and points where the Terror, white and senseless, bleeds thinly at nose and ear. “The left did it,” Mike replies. Out of his eyes the hot light is already dying. He takes a deep, deep breath, that arches his great breast and makes the muscles clutch and climb like serpents; he stretches himself by extending his arms and standing high on his toes. Meanwhile he beams pleasantly on his grizzled adherent. “It wasn’t much,” says Mike. “You be the coolest cove, laddy!” retorts the other in a rapt whisper. Then he towels deftly at the sweat on Mike’s forehead. The decision has been given in Mike’s favor. And to his delight, without argument or hesitation, the loud young man of the vociferous garb comes behind the scenes and endows him with two hundred dollars. “Say,” observes the loud young man, admiringly, “you ain’t no wonder, I don’t t’ink!” “But how did you come to do it, Mike?” asks the good-natured baker, as Mike lingers over a midnight porterhouse at the latter’s restaurant. “I had to, John,” says Mike, turning his innocent face on the other; “I had to win Christmas money for Mollie and little Davy.” “And what,” said the Sour Gentleman, “became of this Mike Menares?” “I should suppose,” broke in the Red Nosed Gentleman, who had followed the Jolly Doctor’s narrative with relish, “I should suppose now he posed for the little sculptor’s Jason.” “It is my belief he did,” observed the Jolly Doctor, with a twinkle, “and in the end he became full partner of the bruiser, O’Punch, and shared the profits of the gymnasium instead of taking a dollar a night for his labors. His sister grew up and married, which, when one reflects on the experience of her mother, shows she owned no little of her brother’s courage.”