FITZSIMMONS. [Recovering from the onslaught and making believe he is angry, advancing threateningly on her.] Now I'm going to put a head on you. You young hoodlum. MAUD. [All alarm and contrition, backing away from him.] Don't! Please don't! I'm sorry! I apologise. I--I beg your pardon, Bob. Only I don't like to hear girls talked about that way, even--even if it is true. And you ought to know. FITZSIMMONS. [Subsiding and resuming seat.] You've changed a lot, I must say. MAUD. [Sitting down in leather chair.] I told you I'd reformed. Let us talk about something else. Why is it girls like prize-fighters? I should think--ahem--I mean it seems to me that girls would think prize- fighters horrid. FITZSIMMONS. They are men. MAUD. But there is so much crookedness in the game. One hears about it all the time. FITZSIMMONS. There are crooked men in every business and profession. The best fighters are not crooked. MAUD. I--er--I thought they all faked fights when there was enough in it. FITZSIMMONS. Not the best ones. MAUD. Did you--er--ever fake a fight? FITZSIMMONS. [Looking at her sharply, then speaking solemnly.] Yes. Once. MAUD. [Shocked, speaking sadly.] And I always heard of you and thought of you as the one clean champion who never faked. FITZSIMMONS. [Gently and seriously.] Let me tell you about it. It was down in Australia. I had just begun to fight my way up. It was with old Bill Hobart out at Rushcutters Bay. I threw the fight to him. MAUD. [Repelled, disgusted.] Oh! I could not have believed it of you. FITZSIMMONS. Let me tell you about it. Bill was an old fighter. Not an old man, you know, but he'd been in the fighting game a long time. He was about thirty-eight and a gamer man never entered the ring. But he was in hard luck. Younger fighters were coming up, and he was being crowded out. At that time it wasn't often he got a fight and the purses were small. Besides it was a drought year in Australia. You don't know what that means. It means that the rangers are starved. It means that the sheep are starved and die by the millions. It means that there is no money and no work, and that the men and women and kiddies starve.