er, despite the stomachs of its weaker members, and the next bout
commenced with a rush. It was advertised in advance by Morris'
neighboring seatholders as a scientific contest, but in pugilism, as in
surgery, science is often gory. In this instance a scientific white man
hit a colored savant squarely on the nose, with the inevitable
sanguinary result, and as though by a prearranged signal Morris and the
drummer on Walsh's right started for the door. In vain did Walsh seize
his neighbor by the coat-tail. The latter shook himself loose, and he
and Morris reached the sidewalk together.

"T'phooie!" said the drummer. "That's an amusement for five dollars."

Morris wiped his face and gasped like a landed fish. At length he
recovered his composure. "I seen you sitting next to Walsh," he said.

The drummer nodded. "He didn't want me to go," he replied. "He said we
come together and we should go together, but I told him I would wait for
him till it was over. Him and that other fellow seem to enjoy it."

"Some people has got funny idees of a good time," Morris commented.

"_That's_ an idee for a loafer," said the drummer. "For my part I like
it more refined."

"I believe you," Morris replied. "Might you would come and take a cup of
coffee with me, maybe?"

He indicated a bathbrick dairy restaurant on the opposite side of the
street.

"Much obliged," the drummer replied, "but I got to go out of town
to-morrow, and coffee keeps me awake. I think I'll wait here for about
half an hour, and if Walsh and his friends don't come out by then I
guess I'll go home."

Morris hesitated. A sense of duty demanded that he stay and see the
matter through, since his newly-made acquaintance with the _tertium
quid_ of Walsh's little party might lead to an introduction to the big
man, and for the rest Morris trusted to his own salesmanship. But the
drummer settled the matter for him.

"On second thought," he said, "I guess I won't wait. Why should I bother
with a couple like them? If you're going downtown on the L I'll go with
you."

Together they walked to the Manhattan terminal of the Third Avenue road
and discussed the features of the disgusting spectacle they had just
witnessed. In going over its details they found sufficient conversation
to cover the journey to One Hundred and Sixteenth Street, where Morris
alighted. When he descended to the street it occurred to him for the
first time that he had omitted to learn both the name an