ee skill of any kind."

She glanced at his arms.

"I'll get out of your way. Come, Jimmy!"

She took him by the arm and went back to the hard chair, while Dion and
Jenkins in the middle of the floor stood up opposite to one another.

"Have you got a watch, Master Jimmy?" said Jenkins, looking over his
shoulder at his pupil.

"Rather!" piped Jimmy.

"Well, then, you'd better time us if you don't referee us."

Jimmy sprang away from his mother.

"Keep out of our road, or you may chance to get a kidney punch that'll
wind you. Better stand here. That's it. Three-minute rounds. Keep your
eye on the watch."

"Am I to say 'Go'?" almost whispered Jimmy, tense with a fearful
importance such as Caesar and Napoleon never felt.

"Who else? You don't expect us to order ourselves about, do you?"

After a pause Jimmy murmured, "No" in a low voice. So might a mortal
whisper a reply when interrogated from Olympus as to his readiness to be
starter at a combat of the immortal gods.

"Now, then, watch in hand and no favoritism!" bellowed Jenkins, whose
sense of humor was as boisterous as his firmness was grim. "Are we
ready?"

Dion and he shook hands formally and lifted their arms, gazing at each
other warily. Mrs. Clarke leaned forward in the chair which stood among
the dumb-bells. Jimmy perspired and his eyes became round. He had his
silver watch tight in his right fist. Jenkins suddenly turned his head
and stared with his shallow and steady blue eyes, looking down from
Olympus upon the speck of a mortal far below.

"Go!" piped Jimmy, in the voice of an ardent, but awestruck mouse.

Homeric was that combat in the Harrow Road; to its starter and
timekeeper a contest of giants, awful in force, in skill, in agility, in
endurance. Dion boxed quite his best that day, helped by his gallery. He
fought to win, but he didn't win. Nobody won, for there was no knock-out
blow given and taken, and, when appealed to for a decision on points,
Jimmy, breathing stertorously from excitement, was quite unable to give
the award. He could only stare at the two glorious heroes before him and
drop the silver watch, glass downwards of course, on the floor, where
its tinkle told of destruction. Later on, when he spoke, he was able to
say:

"By Jove!" which he presently amplified into, "I say, mater, by
Jove--eh, wasn't it, though?"

"Not so bad, sir!" said Jenkins to Dion, after the latter had taken the
shower bath. "You aren't as stale as