He laughed with an attempt at heartiness, while she pressed more closely against him. Across her shoulders he looked around the bare room. It was all he had in the world, with the rent overdue, and her and the kiddies. And he was leaving it to go out into the night to get meat for his mate and cubs--not like a modern working-man going to his machine grind, but in the old, primitive, royal, animal way, by fighting for it. “I gotter do 'im,” he repeated, this time a hint of desperation in his voice. “If it's a win, it's thirty quid--an' I can pay all that's owin', with a lump o' money left over. If it's a lose, I get naught--not even a penny for me to ride home on the tram. The secretary's give all that's comin' from a loser's end. Good-bye, old woman. I'll come straight home if it's a win.” “An' I'll be waitin' up,” she called to him along the hall. It was full two miles to the Gayety, and as he walked along he remembered how in his palmy days--he had once been the heavyweight champion of New South Wales--he would have ridden in a cab to the fight, and how, most likely, some heavy backer would have paid for the cab and ridden with him. There were Tommy Burns and that Yankee nigger, Jack Johnson--they rode about in motor-cars. And he walked! And, as any man knew, a hard two miles was not the best preliminary to a fight. He was an old un, and the world did not wag well with old uns. He was good for nothing now except navvy work, and his broken nose and swollen ear were against him even in that. He found himself wishing that he had learned a trade. It would have been better in the long run. But no one had told him, and he knew, deep down in his heart, that he would not have listened if they had. It had been so easy. Big money--sharp, glorious fights--periods of rest and loafing in between--a following of eager flatterers, the slaps on the back, the shakes of the hand, the toffs glad to buy him a drink for the privilege of five minutes' talk--and the glory of it, the yelling houses, the whirlwind finish, the referee's “King wins!” and his name in the sporting columns next day.