The Return of Battling Billson - (2)

“Yes, till that ghastly female and her blighted boy had got well away.”
    Pained astonishment was written all over Ukridge’s face.
    “You don’t mean to say you didn’t like her? Why, I thought you two would be all over each other.”
    “And I suppose you thought that Cecil and I would be twin souls?”
    “Cecil?” said Ukridge, doubtfully. “Well, to tell you the truth, old man, I’m not saying that Cecil doesn’t take a bit of knowing. He’s the sort of boy you have to be patient with and bring out, if you understand what I mean. I think he grows on you.”
    “If he ever tries to grow on me, I’ll have him amputated.”
    “Well, putting all that on one side,” said Ukridge, “how did things go off?”
    I described the afternoon’s activities in a few tense words.
    “Well, I’m sorry, old horse,” said Ukridge, when I had finished. “I can’t say more than that, can I? I’m sorry. I give you my solemn word I didn’t know what I was letting you in for. But it was a life and death matter. There was no other way out. Flossie insisted on it. Wouldn’t budge an inch.”
    In my anguish I had forgotten all about the impenetrable mystery of Flossie.
    “Who the devil is Flossie?” I asked.
    “What! Flossie? You don’t know who Flossie is? My dear old man, collect yourself. You must remember Flossie. The barmaid at the Crown in Kennington. The girl Battling Billson is engaged to. Surely you haven’t forgotten Flossie? Why, she was saying only yesterday that you had nice eyes.”
    Memory awoke. I felt ashamed that I could ever have forgotten a girl so bounding and spectacular.
    “Of course! The blister you brought with you that night George Tupper gave us dinner at the Regent Grill. By the way, has George ever forgiven you for that?”
    “There is still a little coldness,” admitted Ukridge, ruefully. “I’m bound to say old Tuppy seems to be letting the thing rankle a bit. The fact of the matter is, old horse, Tuppy has his limitations. He isn’t a real friend like you. Delightful fellow, but lacks vision. Can’t understand that there are certain occasions when it is simply imperative that a man’s pals rally round him. Now you——”
    “Well, I’ll tell you one thing. I am hoping that what I went through this afternoon really was for some good cause. I should be sorry, now that I am in a cooler frame of mind, to have to strangle you where you lie. Would you mind telling me exactly what was the idea behind all this?”
    “It’s like this, laddie. Good old Billson blew in to see me the other day.”
    “I met him down in the East End and he asked for your address.”
    “Yes, he told me.”
    “What’s going on? Are you still managing him?”
    “Yes. That’s what he wanted to see me about. Apparently the contract has another year to run and he can’t fix up anything without my O.K. And he’s just had an offer to fight a bloke called Alf Todd at the Universal.”
    “That’s a step up from Wonderland,” I said, for I had a solid respect for this Mecca of the boxing world. “How much is he getting this time?”
    “Two hundred quid.”
    “Two hundred quid! But that’s a lot for practically an unknown man.”
    “Unknown man?” said Ukridge, hurt. “What do you mean, unknown man? If you ask my opinion, I should say the whole pugilistic world is seething with excitement about old Billson. Literally seething. Didn’t he slosh the middleweight champion?”
    “Yes, in a rough-and-tumble in a back alley. And nobody saw him do it.”
    “Well, these things get about.”
    “But two hundred pounds!”
    “A fleabite, laddie, a fleabite. You can take it from me that we shall be asking a lot more than a measly couple of hundred for our services pretty soon. Thousands, thousands! Still, I’m not saying it won’t be something to be going on with. Well, as I say, old Billson came to me and said he had had this offer, and how about it? And when I realised that I was in halves, I jolly soon gave him my blessing and told him to go as far as he liked. So you can imagine how I felt when Flossie put her foot down like this.”
    “Like what? About ten minutes ago when you started talking, you seemed to be on the point of explaining about Flossie. How does she come to be mixed up with the thing? What did she do?”
    “Only wanted to stop the whole business, laddie, that was all. Just put the kybosh on the entire works. Said he mustn’t fight!”
    “Mustn’t fight?”
    “That was what she said. Just in that airy, careless way, as if the most stupendous issues didn’t hang on his fighting as he had never fought before. Said—if you’ll believe me, laddie; I shan’t blame you if you don’t—that she didn’t want his looks spoiled.” Ukridge gazed at me with lifted eyebrows while he let this evidence of feminine perverseness sink in. “His looks, old man! You got the word correctly? His looks! She didn’t want his looks spoiled. Why, damme, he hasn’t got any looks. There isn’t any possible manner in which you could treat that man’s face without improving it. I argued with her by the hour, but no, she couldn’t see it. Avoid women, laddie, they have no intelligence.”
    “Well, I’ll promise to avoid Flossie’s mother, if that’ll satisfy you. How does she come into the thing?”
    “Now, there’s a woman in a million, my boy. She saved the situation. She came along at the eleventh hour and snatched your old friend out of the soup. It seems she has a habit of popping up to London at intervals, and Flossie, while she loves and respects her, finds that from ten minutes to a quarter of an hour of the old dear gives her the pip to such an extent that she’s a nervous wreck for days.”
    I felt my heart warm to the future Mrs. Billson. Despite Ukridge’s slurs, a girl, it seemed to me, of the soundest intelligence.
    “So when Flossie told me—with tears in her eyes, poor girl—that mother was due to-day, I had the inspiration of a lifetime. Said I would take her off her hands from start to finish if she would agree to let Billson fight at the Universal. Well, it shows you what family affection is, laddie; she jumped at it. I don’t mind telling you she broke down completely and kissed me on both cheeks. The rest, old horse, you know.”
    “Yes. The rest I do know.”
    “Never,” said Ukridge, solemnly, “never, old son, till the sands of the desert grow cold, shall I forget how you have stood by me this day!”
    “Oh, all right. I expect in about a week from now you will be landing me with something equally foul.”
    “Now, laddie——”
    “When does this fight come off?”
    “A week from to-night. I’m relying on you to be at my side. Tense nervous strain, old man; shall want a pal to see me through.”
    “I wouldn’t miss it for worlds. I’ll give you dinner before we go there, shall I?”
    “Spoken like a true friend,” said Ukridge, warmly. “And on the following night I will stand you the banquet of your life. A banquet which will ring down the ages. For, mark you, laddie, I shall be in funds. In funds, my boy.”
    “Yes, if Billson wins. What does he get if he loses?”
    “Loses? He won’t lose. How the deuce can he lose? I’m surprised at you talking in that silly way when you’ve seen him only a few days ago. Didn’t he strike you as being pretty fit when you saw him?”
    “Yes, by Jove, he certainly did.”
    “Well, then! Why, it looks to me as if the sea air had made him tougher than ever. I’ve only just got my fingers straightened out after shaking hands with him. He could win the heavyweight championship of the world to-morrow without taking his pipe out of his mouth. Alf Todd,” said Ukridge, soaring to an impressive burst of imagery, “has about as much chance as a one-armed blind man in a dark room trying to shove a pound of melted butter into a wildcat’s left ear with a red-hot needle.”
    Although I knew several of the members, for one reason or another I had never been inside the Universal Sporting Club, and the atmosphere of the place when we arrived on the night of the fight impressed me a good deal. It was vastly different from Wonderland, the East End home of pugilism where I had witnessed the Battler make his début. There, a certain laxness in the matter of costume had been the prevailing note; here, white shirt-fronts gleamed on every side. Wonderland, moreover, had been noisy. Patrons of sport had so far forgotten themselves as to whistle through their fingers and shout badinage at distant friends. At the Universal one might have been in church. In fact, the longer I sat, the more ecclesiastical did the atmosphere seem to become. When we arrived, two acolytes in the bantam class were going devoutly through the ritual under the eye of the presiding minister, while a large congregation looked on in hushed silence. As we took our seats, this portion of the service came to an end and the priest announced that Nippy Coggs was the winner. A reverent murmur arose for an instant from the worshippers, Nippy Coggs disappeared into the vestry, and after a pause of a few minutes I perceived the familiar form of Battling Billson coming up the aisle.
    There was no doubt about it, the Battler did look good. His muscles seemed more cable-like than ever, and a recent hair-cut had given a knobby, bristly appearance to his head which put him even more definitely than before in the class of those with whom the sensible man would not lightly quarrel. Mr. Todd, his antagonist, who followed him a moment later, was no beauty—the almost complete absence of any division between his front hair and his eyebrows would alone have prevented him being that—but he lacked a certain je-ne-sais-quoi which the Battler pre-eminently possessed. From the first instant of his appearance in the public eye our man was a warm favourite. There was a pleased flutter in the pews as he took his seat, and I could hear whispered voices offering substantial bets on him.
    “Six-round bout,” announced the padre. “Battling Billson (Bermondsey) versus Alf Todd (Marylebone). Gentlemen will kindly stop smoking.”
    The congregation relit their cigars and the fight began.
    Bearing in mind how vitally Ukridge’s fortunes were bound up in his protégé’s success to-night, I was relieved to observe that Mr. Todd opened the proceedings in a manner that seemed to offer little scope for any display of Battling Billson’s fatal kind-heartedness. I had not forgotten how at Wonderland our Battler, with the fight in hand, had allowed victory to be snatched from him purely through a sentimental distaste for being rough with his adversary, a man who had had a lot of trouble and had touched Mr. Billson’s heart thereby. Such a disaster was unlikely to occur to-night. It was difficult to see how anyone in the same ring with him could possibly be sorry for Alf Todd. A tender pity was the last thing his behaviour was calculated to rouse in the bosom of an opponent. Directly the gong sounded, he tucked away what little forehead Nature had given him beneath his fringe, breathed loudly through his nose, and galloped into the fray. He seemed to hold no bigoted views as to which hand it was best to employ as a medium of attack. Right or left, it was all one to Alf. And if he could not hit Mr. Billson with his hands, he was perfectly willing, so long as the eye of authority was not too keenly vigilant, to butt him with his head. Broad-minded—that was Alf Todd.
    Wilberforce Billson, veteran of a hundred fights on a hundred scattered water-fronts, was not backward in joining the revels. In him Mr. Todd found a worthy and a willing playmate. As Ukridge informed me in a hoarse whisper while the vicar was reproaching Alf for placing an elbow where no elbow should have been, this sort of thing was as meat and drink to Wilberforce. It was just the kind of warfare he had been used to all his life, and precisely the sort most calculated to make him give of his best—a dictum which was strikingly endorsed a moment later, when, after some heated exchanges in which, generous donor though he was, he had received more than he had bestowed, Mr. Todd was compelled to slither back and do a bit of fancy side-stepping. The round came to an end with the Battler distinctly leading on points, and so spirited had it been that applause broke out in various parts of the edifice.
    The second round followed the same general lines as the first. The fact that up to now he had been foiled in his attempts to resolve Battling Billson into his component parts had had no damping effect on Alf Todd’s ardour. He was still the same active, energetic soul, never sparing himself in his efforts to make the party go. There was a wholehearted abandon in his rushes which reminded one of a short-tempered gorilla trying to get at its keeper. Occasionally some extra warmth on the part of his antagonist would compel him to retire momentarily into a clinch, but he always came out of it as ready as ever to resume the argument. Nevertheless, at the end of round two he was still a shade behind. Round three added further points to the Battler’s score, and at the end of round four Alf Todd had lost so much ground that the most liberal odds were required to induce speculators to venture their cash on his chances.
    And then the fifth round began, and those who a minute before had taken odds of three to one on the Battler and openly proclaimed the money as good as in their pockets, stiffened in their seats or bent forward with pale and anxious faces. A few brief moments back it had seemed to them incredible that this sure thing could come unstitched. There was only this round and the next to go—a mere six minutes of conflict; and Mr. Billson was so far ahead on points that nothing but the accident of his being knocked out could lose him the decision. And you had only to look at Wilberforce Billson to realise the absurdity of his being knocked out. Even I, who had seen him go through the process at Wonderland, refused to consider the possibility. If ever there was a man in the pink, it was Wilberforce Billson.
    But in boxing there is always the thousandth chance. As he came out of his corner for round five, it suddenly became plain that things were not well with our man. Some chance blow in that last melee of round four must have found a vital spot, for he was obviously in bad shape. Incredible as it seemed, Battling Billson was groggy. He shuffled rather than stepped; he blinked in a manner damping to his supporters; he was clearly finding increasing difficulty in foiling the boisterous attentions of Mr. Todd. Sibilant whispers arose; Ukridge clutched my arm in an agonised grip; voices were offering to bet on Alf; and in the Battler’s corner, their heads peering through the ropes, those members of the minor clergy who had been told off to second our man were wan with apprehension.
    Mr. Todd, for his part, was a new man. He had retired to his corner at the end of the preceding round with the moody step of one who sees failure looming ahead. “I’m always chasing rainbows,” Mr. Todd’s eye had seemed to say as it rested gloomily on the resined floor. “Another dream shattered!” And he had come out for round five with the sullen weariness of the man who has been helping to amuse the kiddies at a children’s party and has had enough of it. Ordinary politeness rendered it necessary for him to see this uncongenial business through to the end, but his heart was no longer in it.
    And then, instead of the steel and india-rubber warrior who had smitten him so sorely at their last meeting, he found this sagging wreck. For an instant sheer surprise seemed to shackle Mr. Todd’s limbs, then he adjusted himself to the new conditions. It was as if somebody had grafted monkey-glands on to Alfred Todd. He leaped at Battling Billson, and Ukridge’s grip on my arm became more painful than ever.
    A sudden silence fell upon the house. It was a tense, expectant silence, for affairs had reached a crisis. Against the ropes near his corner the Battler was leaning, heedless of the well-meant counsel of his seconds, and Alf Todd, with his fringe now almost obscuring his eyes, was feinting for an opening. There is a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; and Alf Todd plainly realised this. He fiddled for an instant with his hands, as if he were trying to mesmerise Mr. Billson, then plunged forward.
    A great shout went up. The congregation appeared to have lost all sense of what place this was that they were in. They were jumping up and down in their seats and bellowing deplorably. For the crisis had been averted. Somehow or other Wilberforce Billson had contrived to escape from that corner, and now he was out in the middle of the ring, respited.
    And yet he did not seem pleased. His usually expressionless face was contorted with pain and displeasure. For the first time in the entire proceedings he appeared genuinely moved. Watching him closely, I could see his lips moving, perhaps in prayer. And as Mr. Todd, bounding from the ropes, advanced upon him, he licked those lips. He licked them in a sinister meaning way, and his right hand dropped slowly down below his knee.
    Alf Todd came on. He came jauntily and in the manner of one moving to a feast or festival. This was the end of a perfect day, and he knew it. He eyed Battling Billson as if the latter had been a pot of beer. But for the fact that he came of a restrained and unemotional race, he would doubtless have burst into song. He shot out his left and it landed on Mr. Billson’s nose. Nothing happened. He drew back his right and poised it almost lovingly for a moment. It was during this moment that Battling Billson came to life.
    To Alf Todd it must have seemed like a resurrection. For the last two minutes he had been testing in every way known to science his theory that this man before him no longer possessed the shadow of a punch, and the theory had seemed proven up to the hilt. Yet here he was now behaving like an unleashed whirlwind. A disquieting experience. The ropes collided with the small of Alf Todd’s back. Something else collided with his chin. He endeavoured to withdraw, but a pulpy glove took him on the odd fungoid growth which he was accustomed laughingly to call his ear. Another glove impinged upon his jaw. And there the matter ended for Alf Todd.
    “Battling Billson is the winner,” intoned the vicar.
    “Wow!” shouted the congregation.
    “Whew!” breathed Ukridge in my ear.
    It had been a near thing, but the old firm had pulled through at the finish.
    Ukridge bounded off to the dressing-room to give his Battler a manager’s blessing; and presently, the next fight proving something of an anti-climax after all the fevered stress of its predecessor, I left the building and went home. I was smoking a last pipe before going to bed when a violent ring at the front-door bell broke in on my meditations. It was followed by the voice of Ukridge in the hall.
    I was a little surprised. I had not been expecting to see Ukridge again to-night. His intention when we parted at the Universal had been to reward Mr. Billson with a bit of supper; and, as the Battler had a coy distaste for the taverns of the West End, this involved a journey to the far East, where in congenial surroundings the coming champion would drink a good deal of beer and eat more hard-boiled eggs than you would have believed possible. The fact that the host was now thundering up my stairs seemed to indicate that the feast had fallen through. And the fact that the feast had fallen through suggested that something had gone wrong.
    “Give me a drink, old horse,” said Ukridge, bursting into the room.
    “What on earth’s the matter?”
    “Nothing, old horse, nothing. I’m a ruined man, that’s all.”
    He leaped feverishly at the decanter and siphon which Bowles had placed upon the table. I watched him with concern. This could be no ordinary tragedy that had changed him thus from the ebullient creature of joy who had left me at the Universal. A thought flashed through my mind that Battling Billson must have been disqualified—to be rejected a moment later, when I remembered that fighters are not disqualified as an after-thought half an hour after the fight. But what else could have brought about this anguish? If ever there was an occasion for solemn rejoicing, now would have seemed to be the time.
    “What’s the matter?” I asked again.
    “Matter? I’ll tell you what’s the matter,” moaned Ukridge. He splashed seltzer into his glass. He reminded me of King Lear. “Do you know how much I get out of that fight to-night? Ten quid! Just ten rotten contemptible sovereigns! That’s what’s the matter.”
    “I don’t understand.”
    “The purse was thirty pounds. Twenty for the winner. My share is ten. Ten, I’ll trouble you! What in the name of everything infernal is the good of ten quid?”
    “But you said Billson told you——”
    “Yes, I know I did. Two hundred was what he told me he was to get. And the weak-minded, furtive, under-handed son of Belial didn’t explain that he was to get it for losing!”
    “Losing?”
    “Yes. He was to get it for losing. Some fellows who wanted a chance to do some heavy betting persuaded him to sell the fight.”
    “But he didn’t sell the fight.”
    “I know that, dammit. That’s the whole trouble. And do you know why he didn’t? I’ll tell you. Just as he was all ready to let himself be knocked out in that fifth round, the other bloke happened to tread on his ingrowing toe-nail, and that made him so mad that he forgot about everything else and sailed in and hammered the stuffing out of him. I ask you, laddie! I appeal to you as a reasonable man. Have you ever in your life heard of such a footling, idiotic, woollen-headed proceeding? Throwing away a fortune, an absolute dashed fortune, purely to gratify a momentary whim! Hurling away wealth beyond the dreams of avarice simply because a bloke stamped on his ingrowing toe-nail. His ingrowing toe-nail!” Ukridge laughed raspingly. “What right has a boxer to have an ingrowing toe-nail? And if he has an ingrowing toe-nail, surely—my gosh!—he can stand a little trifling discomfort for half a minute. The fact of the matter is, old horse, boxers aren’t what they were. Degenerate, laddie, absolutely degenerate. No heart. No courage. No self-respect. No vision. The old bulldog breed has disappeared entirely.”
    And with a moody nod Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge passed out into the night.
    CHAPTER VI