away to beat the band before whisky-soaked, smokin' audiences of
rotten fight-fans, that just made me sick clean through. An'
them, that couldn't take just one stiff jolt or hook to jaw or
stomach, a-cheerin' me an' yellin' for blood. Blood, mind you!
An' them without the blood of a shrimp in their bodies. Why,
honest, now, I'd sooner fight before an audience of one--you for
instance, or anybody I liked. It'd do me proud. But them
sickenin', sap-headed stiffs, with the grit of rabbits and the
silk of mangy ky-yi's, a-cheerin' me--ME! Can you blame me for
quittin' the dirty game?--Why, I'd sooner fight before broke-down
old plugs of work-horses that's candidates for chicken-meat, than
before them rotten bunches of stiffs with nothin' thicker'n water
in their veins, an' Contra Costa water at that when the rains is
heavy on the hills."

"I . . . I didn't know prizefighting was like that," she faltered, as
she released her hold on the lines and sank back again beside
him.

"It ain't the fightin', it's the fight-crowds," he defended with
instant jealousy. "Of course, fightin' hurts a young fellow
because it frazzles the silk outa him an' all that. But it's the
low-lifers in the audience that gets me. Why the good things they
say to me, the praise an' that, is insulting. Do you get me? It
makes me cheap. Think of it--booze-guzzlin' stiffs that 'd be
afraid to mix it with a sick cat, not fit to hold the coat of any
decent man, think of them a-standin' up on their hind legs an'
yellin' an' cheerin' me--ME!"

"Ha! ha! What d'ye think of that? Ain't he a rogue?"