He had a well-shaped head - not the "bullet" type of many pugilists - and dark hair which was turning gray. He carried this head at a proud angle which gave emphasis to his prominent jaw. His face was somewhat florid, so that even without knowing who he was, on would have said "Here is a man who has been a hard drinker." He had a fine mustache in the old tradition. Starting below his nostrils this mustache, a few shades grayer than his hair, extended in leisurely fashion over his lip and all the way across his face on both sides. The under edges were a trifle ragged and the curl at the ends was upward. He had a custom of snorting sometimes, as he was about to say something, after which he would stroke his mustache, first on one side, then on the other. I got the idea that this stroking business acted as a sedative on him. . . .
He talked with a perceptible, but not pronounced, brogue. When he became excited, however, this brogue grow thicker. He made small errors in grammar, which stamped him as a man of little education, but remembering how brief his education really was, one had to admit that he talked remarkably well. . . .
"Well, there's nothing to fighting, " he opened up, "Just come out fast from your corner, hit the other fellow as hard as you can and hit him first. That's all there is to fighting."
He laughed, then at once grew serious.
"What I should like to talk about is something else. Whiskey! There's the only fighter that ever really licked old John L. Jim Corbett, according to the record, knocked me out in New Orleans in 1892, but he only gave the finishing touches to what whiskey had already done to me. If I had met Jim Corbett before whiskey got me I'd have killed him. I stopped drinking long ago, but of course, too late. Too late for old John L., but not too late for millions of boys who are starting out to follow the same road
