The average admirer of the manly art of aggravated assault has the idea that a prize fighter's manager is the gent the leather pusher has got to give half his wages to, which sits in his meal ticket's corner bawlin' him out every time the other young man clouts him earnestly on the features—and that's about all. Nothin', outside of the Arabian Nights, could be farther from the facts. A first-class pilot is to a box fighter what a race track is to a jockey—he's got to have one or he don't get nowheres. There is no doubt whole coveys of boxin' impresarios which is little more than towel wavers and nickel hiders, but a real, Big Time manager of pugs hustles harder for his pennies than a bill poster on a windy day. He's got to have the conscience of a loan shark, the shrewdness of Shylock's old man, the nerve of a blind tightrope walker, the imagination of the guy which invented boardin'-house hash, and the optimism of a salesman startin' through Hades with a line of celluloid collars. He's got to be press agent, trainer, banker, adviser, valet, pal, and keeper for some bullnecked mauler, which nine and three-fifths times outa ten presents him with the raspberry the instant he graduates from the preliminaries.
