tle their indignation, the
official announcer officially announced that there had been a slight
hitch in the proceedings.

"I have to explain," he yelled in his gentlest manner, "that two of
the boxers have failed to turn up. Both have excellent excuses and
doctors' certificates to account for their absence, but we have
unfortunately to confess that the Kingston heavy-weight and the Troy
feather-weight are incapacitated for the present. The feather-weight
from Kingston, however, is a good enough sport to express a
willingness to box, for points, with the heavy-weight from Troy. While
this match will look a little unusual owing to the difference in size
of the two opponents, it will be scientific enough, we have no doubt,
to make it interesting as well as picturesque."

As usual, the audience, not knowing what else to say, applauded very
cordially.

And now the heavy-weight from Troy, one Jaynes, appeared upon the
scene with his second. There was no roped-off space, but only an
imaginary "ring," which was, as usual, a square--of about twenty-four
feet each way.

Jaynes was just barely qualified as a heavy-weight, being only a
trifle over one hundred and fifty-eight pounds. But he overshadowed
little Bobbles as the giants overshadowed Jack the Giant-killer.

Bobbles, while he was diminutive compared with Jaynes, was yet rather
tall and wiry for his light weight, and had an unusually long reach
for one of his size. He regretted now the great pains he had taken to
train down to feather-weight weight. For when he had stepped on the
scales in the gymnasium, the day before he had started for Troy, he
found that he was three pounds over the necessary hundred and fifteen.
So he had put on three sweaters, two pairs of trousers, and his
football knickers, and run around the track for fully four miles,
until he was in doubt as to whether he was a liquid or a solid body.
Then he had fallen into a hot bath, and jumped from that into a cold
shower, and had then been rubbed down by some of his faithful Lakerim
friends with a pail of rock-salt to harden his muscles. At Troy, too,
he had continued these tactics, and found, to his delight, when he
weighed in, that he just tipped the scales at one hundred and fifteen.
And now he was matched to fight with a heavy-weight, and every pound
he had sweat off would have been an advantage to him! Yet, at any
rate, it was not a fight to a finish, but only for points, and he
counted upon his