ot because he bore the Gouger
any ill-will, but because that was the surest way to put the Gouger
out and win the big end of the purse. Nor had the Gouger borne him any
ill-will for it. It was the game, and both knew the game and played it.

Tom King had never been a talker, and he sat by the window, morosely
silent, staring at his hands. The veins stood out on the backs of the
hands, large and swollen; and the knuckles, smashed and battered and
malformed, testified to the use to which they had been put. He had never
heard that a man's life was the life of his arteries, but well he knew
the meaning of those big upstanding veins. His heart had pumped too much
blood through them at top pressure. They no longer did the work. He
had stretched the elasticity out of them, and with their distension had
passed his endurance. He tired easily now. No longer could he do a fast
twenty rounds, hammer and tongs, fight, fight, fight, from gong to gong,
with fierce rally on top of fierce rally, beaten to the ropes and
in turn beating his opponent to the ropes, and rallying fiercest and
fastest of all in that last, twentieth round, with the house on its
feet and yelling, himself rushing, striking, ducking, raining showers
of blows upon showers of blows and receiving showers of blows in return,
and all the time the heart faithfully pumping the surging blood through
the adequate veins. The veins, swollen at the time, had always
shrunk down again, though each time, imperceptibly at first, not
quite--remaining just a trifle larger than before. He stared at them and
at his battered knuckles, and, for the moment, caught a vision of the
youthful excellence of those hands before the first knuckle had been
smashed on the head of Benny Jones, otherwise known as the Welsh Terror.

The impression of his hunger came back on him.

"Blimey, but couldn't I go a piece of steak!" he muttered aloud,
clenching his huge fists and spitting out a smothered oath.

"I tried both Burke's an' Sawley's," his wife said half apologetically.

"An' they wouldn't?" he demanded.

"Not a ha'penny. Burke said--" She faltered.

"G'wan! Wot'd he say?"

"As how 'e was thinkin' Sandel ud do ye to-night, an' as how yer score
was comfortable big as it was."

Tom King grunted, but did not reply. He was busy thinking of the bull
terrier he had kept in his younger days to which he had fed steaks
without end. Burke would have given him credit for a thousand
steaks--then.