Without waiting for ceremony, the men clinched.

The crowd roared with laughter, for though Jennings was the younger, the older man was a giant still, and the struggle lasted for some time.

He made a gallant fight, but his breath gave out, and he lay at last flat on his back.
"I wish I was your age, young man," he said ruefully, as he rose.

"I'd knock the heads o' these young scamps t'gether--yessir!--I could do it, too!".
"Talk's a good dog, uncle," said a young man.
The old man turned on him so ferociously that he fled.
"Run, condemn yeh! I own y' can beat me at that." His face was not unpleasant, though his teeth were mainly gone, and his skin the color of leather and wrinkled as a pan of cream.

His eyes had a certain sparkle of fun that belied his rasping voice, which seemed to have the power to lift a boy clean off his feet.