He made a bluff, and it went.

The youngsters who came to Yale and desired to be instructed in the manly art were always recommended to Kelley.
To give Kelley his due, he was really a fairly good boxer, and he might have made a decent sort of a fight if he had possessed the courage to accept a match and the self denial and energy to go through a regular course of training.
But Kelley was making an easy living "catching suckers," and there was no real reason why he should go through the hardships of training and actually fighting so long as he could fool the youngsters who regarded him as a one-time great and shining light of the prize ring.
He was too shrewd to stand up with any pupil who might get the best of him and permit that pupil to hammer away at him.

He kept them at work on certain kinds of blows, so he always knew exactly what was coming.

In this manner of training them he never betrayed just how much he really knew about fighting.
Some of the young fellows who became Kelley's pupils were the sons of wealthy parents, and then it happened that the professor worked his little game for all there was in it.

He sold them "secrets," and they paid dearly for what they learned.