"But you are certainly the supreme fighter of this period of scrappers. If you chose to enter the ring, you might be champion of the world. It would delight my soul to be able to put up a real fight like that."
"Wha-a-at?" gasped the sailor. "I think I fail to catch your meaning."
"It disgusts me," repeated Merry. "If there is anything that makes me feel degraded, it is being compelled to take part in a fight of that sort. I was practically forced into it on this occasion. I saw those fellows meant mischief, and I felt that the only way to settle the affair was to give that big duffer a thumping. It's about the only reasoning a man can use on men of his calibre. Words and arguments fail to affect them, and a good thrashing moves them to respect."
"But do you mean to tell me," said Wiley, "that you are not an admirer of the manly art of self-defense? Do you mean to tell me that you take no interest in the prize ring and the glorious heroes of it?"
"If there is anything for which I have absolutely no use," said Merry, "it is a professional prize fighter. To me prize fighting is the most degrading of all the so-called sports."
"This is more than passing strange," said the sailor. "If such can be the case, will you elucidate to me how it happened that you ever learned to use your little dukes in such a marvelously scientific manner?"
"I think it is the duty of every American youth to learn to defend himself with his fists. No matter how peacefully inclined he is, no matter how much of a gentleman he is, no matter how much forbearance he may have, there is bound to come a time in his life when he will be forced to fight or suffer insults or bodily injury. As a rule, I never fight if I can avoid it. In this instance I might have avoided it for the time being, but I was certain that if I did so the matter would culminate in something more serious than a fistic encounter. Had I escaped from that saloon without meeting Spotted Dan, he and all his partners would have regarded me as afraid of them, and you know very well that they would have sought to force trouble on me at every opportunity. The easiest way to settle the whole matter was to fight then and there, and therefore I did so."