Page:Love and Learn (1924).pdf/213

 "Oh, one thing I know and you can believe it, the first in the ring is the last to leave it!"

Mike moaned aloud and Silent Sam chased the grinning singer over to the other corner.

Introduction—challenges—wild and deafening applause—jeers—the bell!

Oh, that horrible first round! Hazel covered her face with her hands, but honestly the raw brutality of it fascinated me! Apparently hypnotized by the "lucky" mole on his opponent's right shoulder and the knowledge that this fellow had defeated him before, Michael took a terrible punching. Even a pantingly muttered "Bread and butter, bread and butter!" couldn't save him, though it highly amused the cruelly grinning O'Cohen. The mob, always with a winner in boxing as in anything else, stood on their chairs and howled for O'Cohen to "knock him for a loop!" He certainly tried, but Michael was game—beneath the bludgeonings of O'Cohen his head was bloody but unbowed! Occasionally Mike lashed out desperately with both gloves, but there was little heart in the efforts, both the delighted O'Cohen and the enraged crowd being quick to sense it. The dark-skinned challenger drove the tottering champion all around the ring, beating him from pillar to post till finally the tired Michael fell into a clinch in his own corner, right above me and Hazel.