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"You journalist chaps just spoil us," said Puncher Pete, when I called upon him yesterday at his training camp. "You draw us into conversation, stick down our remarks in your note-books, and then make us out to be the biggest boasters on the face of the earth. It's not right.

"For instance, you've got it on the tip of your tongue to ask me if I think I'll lick Jimmy Battle next Thursday. Well, of course I'll lick him. Jimmy's a good boy, but he can't stay, and then he hasn't gone twenty rounds with three blacks, as I have. But what's my opinion matter to you? Why make me shout it out like a cock on a steeple?

"Yes, I shall beat Jimmy. Six rounds will cure him. All right. Very well then. Leave it at that.

"One of your fellows called upon me two days ago. 'Pete,' he said, 'they say you're ill.' 'You tell 'em to mind their own ills,' I gave him back. Ill, indeed! If I were ill could I walk my forty miles a day and think nothing of it? Could I lift Harry Blokes there with one hand and hold him above my head? D'you suppose a sick man could do this?"

The Puncher seized a skipping-rope and did marvellous things with it. Then he smashed lustily at a punch-ball, left, right, left, right, duck, bing! "Here, Harry!" he cried. His sparring partner approached, bruised but beaming. The Puncher knocked him down.

"I seem ill, don't I?" said Pete, turning to me. "But what's it got to do with all you chaps, anyway? Wait till Thursday. Then you'll find out whether I'm ill or not. And even if I was ill Jimmy couldn't do it. Jimmy's got as good a punch as the next man, I'll say that for him. If he gets it in it would fell an ox: But can he get it in? Not next Thursday.

"Now, see here, you're not going to draw any words from me about the coming fight. You may draw others. I refuse. Let's get right of this fight and on to other things.

"After all, fighters are modest chaps. When I knocked Torpedo Troop out in three rounds last April for a purse of £5,000 and the Championship of Nova Scotia I didn't go bragging. I might have said that this was the first time that the Torpedo had ever had his eyes closed. Well, I didn't. What's more, I never shall. Tell your readers that!

"Take my victory over Quartermain, again. Or over Dinghy Abbs, who was down and out in the second round in spite of all the fuss that was made about him beforehand. I was a sick man at both these fights. Not a soul knew it, mind you. My wife—for I'm as fond of home life as any ordinary man, and we have a little baby—my wife used to worry terribly. She'd expect me to come home on a stretcher. But I never happened to choose that conveyance, and she don't fret any more.

"Will it be a stretcher on Thursday? I can see you want to put that question, but I'll ask you to excuse me. Next Thursday, as I've already hinted, will tell its own story, and when I say that the tale will have a happy ending for one of us who isn't too far from your ear to boast about it if he was inclined that way, perhaps you'll guess without my telling you what I mean.

"Not at all, Sir. Don't mention it. I'm always glad to have a friendly chat with anyone, and I hope you'll forgive me for refusing to talk shop." 