a gamer man never entered the ring. But he
was in hard luck. Younger fighters were coming up, and he was being
crowded out. At that time it wasn't often he got a fight and the purses
were small. Besides it was a drought year in Australia. You don't know
what that means. It means that the rangers are starved. It means that
the sheep are starved and die by the millions. It means that there is no
money and no work, and that the men and women and kiddies starve.

Bill Hobart had a missus and three kids and at the time of his fight with
me they were all starving. They did not have enough to eat. Do you
understand? They did not have enough to eat. And Bill did not have
enough to eat. He trained on an empty stomach, which is no way to train
you'll admit. During that drought year there was little enough money in
the ring, but he had failed to get any fights. He had worked at long-
shoring, ditch-digging, coal-shovelling--anything, to keep the life in
the missus and the kiddies. The trouble was the jobs didn't hold out.
And there he was, matched to fight with me, behind in his rent, a tough
old chopping-block, but weak from lack of food. If he did not win the
fight, the landlord was going to put them into the street.

MAUD. But why would you want to fight with him in such weak condition?

FITZSIMMONS. I did not know. I did not learn till at the ringside just
before the fight. It was in the dressing rooms, waiting our turn to go
on. Bill came out of his room, ready for the ring. "Bill," I said--in
fun, you know. "Bill, I've got to do you to-night." He said nothing,
but he looked at me with the saddest and most pitiful face I have ever
seen. He went back into his dressing room and sat down.

"Poor Bill!" one of my seconds said. "He's been fair starving these last
weeks. And I've got it straight, the landlord chucks him out if he loses
to-night."

Then the call came and we went into the ring. Bill was desperate. He
fought like a tiger, a madman. He was fair crazy. He was fighting for
more than I was fighting for. I was a rising fighter, and I was fighting
for the money and the recognition. But Bill was fighting for life--for
the life of his loved ones.

Well, condition told. The strength went out of him, and I was fresh as a
daisy. "What's the matter, Bill?" I said to him in a clinch. "You're
weak." "I ain't had a bit to eat this day," he answered. That was all.

By the seventh round h