Once he'd looked that word up in a dictionary, just after he whipped Fanchette; looked it up a little sheepishly, though he was alone at the time. Champion:--One who by beating all rivals has obtained an acknowledged supremacy. Then Devereau and Dunham were right. According to that he wasn't a champion. Nobody acknowledged him. But he'd teach 'em a better definition. A champion was someone who could go right on fighting when everybody was cheering for the other guy. A champion was somebody who could fool 'em that easy!--that complete! You bet! Who could fight and think at the same time, that clearly!--that logically!--like he was doing. But he fell down often. Yet that didn't prevent this reasoning things out. And he didn't wait now for the count, either. He'd get right up each time, he'd decided, so that they could not call him yellow. They hated him so. But he knew the answer to that, too, at last. And that gave him something to laugh at, the way Holliday had grinned. Honesty was the best policy! He fair rocked with glee--and got up again! Now English had him by the arm. He wouldn't hit English--English meant well if he wasn't a champion. He'd follow English docilely and sit down as he was ordered. He must have missed the bell again. But English's crying, his whimpering, bothered him. It was a sniffling, wild-beast whine. That's the way a wolf or a tiger would sound, outside the circle of a fire's glow, unable to help its kitten or cub. But it annoyed him just the same--took his mind off important things. And what had English to cry over anyway? The roof hadn't fallen on him. There was something about that that he hadn't yet got quite straight in his mind. If he could--if he could--A brick roof didn't sound right. If he could just force his brain a little further. It was urgent--he could fight better--it had a direct bearing on the fight. But there was that damned bell again. It interrupted him; broke in upon his train of reasoning. But he'd get up and fight some more. That was what they'd paid their money to see. He'd fight and try to think it out at the same time.