was indeed a
serious sign. In long periods of self-imposed solitude he had devised
and discarded as hopeless various schemes for bringing discomfiture upon
his latest and most dangerous rival. For a while he had thought somehow,
somewhere, to rake up proofs of the interloper's former wild and
reckless life. But of what avail to do that?

By his own frank avowal the Professor had had a spangled past; had been
an adventurer and a wanton, a wandering minstrel bard; had even been in
jail. This background of admitted transgressions, now that he was so
completely reformed and reclaimed, merely made him an all-the-more
attractive figure in the eyes of those to whom he offered confession.
Again, Jeff had trifled with a vague design of taunting Fringe into a
quarrel and beating him up something scandalous. To this end he
tentatively had approached our leading exponent of the art of
self-defense and our most dependable sporting authority, one Mr. Jerry
Ditto.

Mr. Ditto had grown out of a clerkship at Gus Neihiem's cigar-store into
the realm of fistiana. As a shadow-boxer he excelled; as a bag-puncher
also. But in an incautious hour for himself and his backer, Flash Purdy,
owner of Purdy's Dixieland Bar, he had permitted himself to be entered
for a match before an athletic club at Louisville against one Max
Schorrer, a welter-weight appearing professionally under the _nom de
puge_ of Slugging Fogarty. It was to have been a match of twelve rounds,
but early in the second round Mr. Ditto suddenly lost all conscious
interest in the proceedings.

He retired from the ring after this with a permanent lump on the point
of his jaw and a profound conviction that the Lord had made a mistake
and drowned the wrong crowd that time at the Red Sea. He fitted up a
gymnasium in the old plow factory and gave instructions in sparring to
the youth of the town. Naturally, his patronage was all-white, but he
offered to take Jeff on for a few strictly private lessons at night
provided Jeff would promise not to tell anybody about it. But at last
the prospective client drew back. His ways were the ways of peace and
diplomacy. Why depart from them? And, anyhow, this Cephus Fringe was so
dog-goned sinewy-looking. Playing a saxophone ought to give a man wind
and endurance. If not knocked cold in the first onslaught he might
become seriously antagonized toward Jeff.

But now, in the sportive fablings of the young white gentleman from up
North who was v