particular attention, and even now it was scarcely more than an
involuntary glance; but his eyes stopped suddenly upon a face, and as
recognition suddenly dawned upon him he could feel the hot blood rushing
to his own. For there was the girl whom Fate had thrice before thrown in
his path! Beside her he recognized the Miss Harriet Holden who had been
with her the night at Feinheimer's, and with them were two young men.

Something within Jimmy Torrance rebelled to a point where it utterly
dominated him--rebelled at the thought that this girl, whom he had
unconsciously set upon a pedestal to worship from afar, should always
find him in some menial and humiliating position. It was bad enough that
she should see him as a sparring partner of a professional pug, but it
made it infinitely worse that she should see him as what he must appear,
an unsuccessful third or fourth rate fighter.

Everything within Jimmy's mind turned suddenly topsyturvy. He seemed to
lose all sense of proportion and all sense of value in one overpowering
thought, that he must not again be humiliated in her presence.

And so it was that at the tap of the gong for the third round it was not
Torrance the sparring partner that advanced from his corner, but Jimmy
Torrance, champion heavyweight boxer of a certain famous university. But
why enter into the harrowing details of the ensuing minute and a half?

In thirty seconds it was unquestionably apparent to every one in the
room, including Young Brophy himself, that the latter was pitifully
outclassed. Jimmy hit him whenever and wherever he elected to him, and
he hit him hard, while Brophy, at best only a second or third rate
fighter, pussy and undertrained, was not only unable to elude the blows
of his adversary but equally so to land effectively himself.