One night Mr. Clarkson, of the Education Office, was rather late in
leaving the Savile Club. He always makes a point of selecting the best
articles in the _Nineteenth Century_, the _Fortnightly_, and the
_Contemporary_ on the first Monday of every month, and, owing to a
suspension of political activity in the House of Commons, he had lately
spent more time than usual over the daily papers as well, since they
could now afford greater space for subjects of interest. He noticed with
some regret that it was half-past eleven as he came up Piccadilly and
admired, as he never failed to admire, that urbane aspect of nature's
charm presented by the Green Park.
It was late, but the evening was cool and dry. He wished to follow up a
train of thought suggested by the question: "Should Aristotle be left
out?" but, to preserve his mind from exclusiveness, he now and then
considered it advantageous to plunge into what he called the full tide
of humanity at Charing Cross. So that night, instead of making his way
by the shortest route to his rooms in Westminster, he strolled, with a
pleasurable sense of sympathetic abandonment, through the usual crowds
that were hurrying home from theatres or supper-room.
But he soon perceived that all the crowds were not usual. Some were not
hurrying; they were stationary. They were nearly all men, unrelieved by
that subdued feminine radiance which Mr. Clarkson so much valued in the
colour scheme of London. They were mainly silent. They appeared to be
waiting for something.
"Is the King returning from the Opera?" he asked a policeman near King
Charles's statue. But the policeman regarded him with a silent pity so
profound that he suddenly remembered a King's recent death and the
mourning in which the country was still partially immersed. No, it could
not be royalty, and, feeling for the first time like a stranger in the
centre of existence, Mr. Clarkson hurriedly crossed the road.
Between the top of Northumberland Avenue and Charing Cross Station he
observed another crowd of the same character, but in thicker numbers
still. Unwilling to eschew any emotion that thus stirred his fellow
citizens, he approached the outskirts and waited, in hopes of gathering
information without further inquiry. But the crowd was doggedly silent.
Nearly all were reading the evening papers, and the few snatches of
conversation that Mr. Clarkson caught appeared to be meaningless. At
last he ventured to accost a harmless-looking, pale-faced youth in a
straw hat, who was reading the latest _Star_, and asked him what he was
waiting for.
The youth looked him up and down from head to foot, and then slowly
uttered the words: "I don't think!"
"I'm so very sorry for that," said Mr. Clarkson, a little irritated,
but, as he turned hastily away he reflected with a smile that, after
all, one should be grateful to find imbecility so frankly acknowledged.
Next time he was more diplomatic. Standing quietly for a while beside a
good-tempered-looking man, who was evidently an out-of-work cab-driver,
he yawned two or three times, and said at last: "How long shall we have
to wait, do you think?"
"Depends on cable," said the cab-driver. "Got a bit on?"
"Well, no; I haven't exactly got anything on," said Mr. Clarkson,
uneasily; "but may I ask what cable you mean?"
"Don't be silly," said the cabman, and spat between his feet.
"Cheer up, long-face!" said another man, who had been listening. "He
only means the cable from the States. Perhaps you've never heard of the
White Man's Hope?"
Light at last broke upon Mr. Clarkson. "Of course," he said, "it's
Independence Day! I've seen the American flag flying from several
buildings. It has always appeared a most remarkable thing to me that we
English people should thus ungrudgingly accept the celebration of our
most disastrous national defeat. Such entire disappearance of racial
animosity is, indeed, full of future promise. I suppose, if you liked,
you might without exaggeration call it the White Man's Hope?"
"Stow it," said the cabman.
"No doubt the day is being marked in the United States by some special
event," Mr. Clarkson continued, "and you are waiting for the account?"
No one answered. An American was reading aloud from a newspaper: "If the
Imperturbable Colossus gets knocked out, a general assault upon all
negroes throughout the States may be expected to ensue. The wail that
goes up from Reno will be re-echoed from every land where the black
problem sits like a nightmare on the chest. It is not too much to say
that a new chapter in the world's history will open before our
astonished eyes, so adequately is the gigantic struggle between the
black and white races prefigured in the persons of their chosen
champions."
All listened with attention.
"That's what I call thickened truth," said the American, looking
solemnly round. "If that coloured gentleman with a yellow streak worries
our battle-hardened veteran and undefeated hero of all time, the negro
will grow scarce."
"They've been praying for Jeffries in all the American churches," said
one, in the solemn pause that followed this announcement.
"So they have for Johnson in the negro churches," said another, "but he
counts most on his mother's prayers. She lives in Chicago."
"It is peculiar in modern and Christianised countries," said Mr.
Clarkson, anxious to show that he now fully understood the point at
issue; "it is peculiar that the opposing parties in a war or other
contest implore with equal confidence the assistance of the same deity."
"Millionaires is sleeping three in a bed at Reno. There's a thing!" said
the man who was most anxious to impart information.
"The gate comes to £50,000, let alone the pictures," said another. "Each
of them's going to get £500 a minute for the time they fight."
"Beats taxis," said the cabman.
"It's hardly fair to criticise the amount," Mr. Clarkson expostulated
pleasantly; "the £500 represents prolonged training and practice in the
art. As Whistler said, the payment is not for a day's work, but for a
lifetime."
"Who are you calling the Whistler?" asked the cabman; "Jim Corbett, or
John Sullivan?"
"Jeffries ate five lamb chops to his breakfast this morning," said the
man of information, "and Johnson ate a chicken."
"Wish I'd eat both," said the cabman.
"What do you think of the upper-cut?" said the other, turning to Mr.
Clarkson to escape the cabman's frivolity.
"Well, I suppose it's a matter of taste--upper-cut or under-cut," Mr.
Clarkson answered, smiling at his seriousness. "Most people, I think,
prefer under-cut."
"Johnson's right upper-cut is described as the piston of an ocean
greyhound making twenty-seven knots," said the man, taking no notice of
the answer, and speaking in awestruck tones. "Do you know, one paper
describes Johnson as the best piece of fighting machinery the world has
ever seen!"
"I thought that was the last _Dreadnought_?" said Mr. Clarkson.
"Perhaps you don't study the literature of the Ring," the other
answered, with cold superiority.
"Oh, indeed I do!" cried Mr. Clarkson eagerly. "It is rather remarkable
what a fascination the art of boxing has frequently exercised upon the
masters of literature. Even the Greeks, in spite of their artistic
reverence for the human body, practised boxing with extreme severity,
and on their statues, you know, we sometimes find a recognised
distortion which they called 'the boxer's ear.' It seems to show that
they hit round rather than straight from the shoulder. The ancient
boxing-gloves were intended, not to diminish, but to increase the
severity of the blow, being made of seven or eight strands of cow-hide,
heavily weighted with iron and lead. There is that fine description of a
prize-fight in Virgil, where the veteran--'the imperturbable colossus'
of his time, I suppose we may call him--almost knocks the life out of
the younger man, and sends him from the contest swinging his head to and
fro, and spitting out teeth mingled with blood--rather a horrible
picture!"
"Ten to six on the boiler-maker," said the cabman; "I'll take ten to
six."
"And then, of course," Mr. Clarkson continued, "in recent times there
are splendid accounts of the fights in _Lavengro_ and Meredith's
_Amazing Marriage_, and Browning once refers to the Tipton Slasher, and
we all know Conan Doyle."
"No, we don't," said the cabman.
"It seems rather hard to explain the attraction of prize-fighting," Mr.
Clarkson went on, meditatively; "perhaps it comes simply from the
dramatic element of battle. It is a war in brief, a concentrated
militancy. Or perhaps it is the more barbaric delight in vicarious pain
and endurance; and I think sometimes we ought to include the pleasure of
our race in fair play and the just and equal rigour of the game."
What other reasons Mr. Clarkson might have found were lost in the
yelling of newsboys tearing down the Strand. Too excited to speak, the
crowd engulfed them. The papers were torn from their hands. Short cries,
short sentences followed. Here and there Mr. Clarkson caught an
intelligible word: "Revolvers taken at gate"; "Expected Johnson would be
shot if victorious"; "Opening spar almost academic in its calmness";
"Old wound on Jeffries's right eye opened"; "Both cheeks gashed to the
bone"; "Jack handed out some wicked lefts"; "Terrible gruelling"; "Both
shutters out of working order"; "Defeat certain after eighth round";
"Johnson hooked his left"; "The Circassian remained on his knees";
"Counting went on"; "Fatal ten was reached."
The crowd gasped. Then it shouted, it swore, it broke up swearing.
"Negroes had best crawl underground to-night," said the American; "it
ain't good for negroes when their heads grow through their hair."
"Another proof," sighed Mr. Clarkson, "another proof that, on
Roosevelt's principle, the United States are unfit for self-government."
When he reached his rooms it was nearly one, but a door opened softly on
the top floor, and the landlady's little boy looked over the banisters
and asked: "Please, sir, did Jim win, sir?"
"Let me see," said Mr. Clarkson, "which was Jim?"