ideas about the possible skill of lady boxers and his estimate was not flattering. However, he was willing to teach Gwen because he liked her, thought of her as a good sport, and hoped to profit by his acquaintance with her. He was destined to find her rather a surprise as a boxer.

Exactly at nine o’clock next morning he was on hand in the small sawdust circle at a remote corner of the “big top.” Gwen was only three minutes late and Johnny put that down as being much to her credit. “Most girls would have been fifteen minutes or half an hour behind time,” was his mental comment.

After a formal “Good morning,” Johnny helped Gwen on with her gloves. This gave him an opportunity to look her over. Naturally her hands received his first attention. He looked for rings; found none, and then laughed at himself for believing that any person would come for a boxing lesson with rings on her fingers.

Looking her up and down from head to toe, he found her good to the eye—even better than in her professional costume. She was all of a girl now. In her short skirt, blue middie and silk stockings and with her mass of hair drawn tightly into form beneath a strong net, she made a picture worth looking at. Johnny found himself catching his breath sharply as he drew on her gloves and laced them snugly about her wrists.

“You won’t strike hard—not at first, anyway—will you?” she breathed.

“Not at all,” Johnny smiled, “but you’ll have to be careful about one thing; practice calls for boxing that is as near the real thing as possible. I mean that I’ll seem to be going to deal you a real knock-out blow, but I’ll ‘pull the blow,’ as they say, just before it lands, so it will be a mere tap. The thing you’ll have to be a little careful about is running into those ‘hay makers,’ otherwise they may prove to be the real thing in spite of all I can do to avoid it.”

“I’ll try,” Gwen smiled back. “Are you ready?” She tapped him playfully on the nose.

“Ready!” Johnny squared away.

From the start, Gwen’s boxing was a baffling mystery to the boy. She seemed to fairly dance on air. Her foot movements were marvelous. Now she was here; now there; now in another corner of the ring. Johnny had been called the fastest boy of the ring, but Gwen was faster. For some time he did not reach her even with a light tap.

But time taught him new tricks and brought back to his mind 

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