d had at home a
missus an' a couple of kiddies. And perhaps Bill, that very day of the
fight, had had a hungering for a piece of steak. Bill had fought game
and taken incredible punishment. He could see now, after he had gone
through the mill himself, that Stowsher Bill had fought for a bigger
stake, that night twenty years ago, than had young Tom King, who had
fought for glory and easy money. No wonder Stowsher Bill had cried
afterward in the dressing-room.

Well, a man had only so many fights in him, to begin with. It was the
iron law of the game. One man might have a hundred hard fights in him,
another man only twenty; each, according to the make of him and the
quality of his fibre, had a definite number, and, when he had fought
them, he was done. Yes, he had had more fights in him than most of
them, and he had had far more than his share of the hard, gruelling
fights--the kind that worked the heart and lungs to bursting, that took
the elastic out of the arteries and made hard knots of muscle out of
Youth's sleek suppleness, that wore out nerve and stamina and made brain
and bones weary from excess of effort and endurance overwrought. Yes,
he had done better than all of them. There were none of his old fighting
partners left. He was the last of the old guard. He had seen them all
finished, and he had had a hand in finishing some of them.

They had tried him out against the old uns, and one after another he had
put them away--laughing when, like old Stowsher Bill, they cried in
the dressing-room. And now he was an old un, and they tried out the
youngsters on him. There was that bloke, Sandel. He had come over from
New Zealand with a record behind him. But nobody in Australia knew
anything about him, so they put him up against old Tom King. If Sandel
made a showing, he would be given better men to fight, with bigger
purses to win; so it was to be depended upon that he would put up a
fierce battle. He had everything to win by it--money and glory and
career; and Tom King was the grizzled old chopping-block that guarded
the highway to fame and fortune. And he had nothing to win except thirty
quid, to pay to the landlord and the tradesmen. And, as Tom King thus
ruminated, there came to his stolid vision the form of Youth, glorious
Youth, rising exultant and invincible, supple of muscle and silken of
skin, with heart and lungs that had never been tired and torn and
that laughed at limitation of effort. Yes, Youth was the N