"What guarantee have I," demanded Ukridge, "that if I go to enormous trouble and expense getting him another match, he won't turn aside and brush away a silent tear in the first round because he's heard that the blighter's wife has got an ingrowing toenail?"
"You could match him only against bachelors."
"Yes, and the first bachelor he met would draw him into a corner and tell him his aunt was down with whooping-cough, and the chump would heave a sigh and stick his chin out to be walloped. A fellow's got no business to have red hair if he isn't going to live up to it. And yet," said Ukridge, wistfully, "I've seen that man - it was in a dance-hall at Naples - I've seen him take on at least eleven Italians simultaneously. But then, one of them stuck a knife about three inches into his leg. He seems to need something like that to give him ambition."
"I don't see how you are going to arrange to have him knifed just before each fight."
(from "The Debut of Battling Billson," by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)
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