Yale on the ways to the clubhouse. So I know your idea of a box-fighter's manager is a guy which would frame his brother for a dollar-fifty, set fire to a orphan asylum just to be nasty, and rob a blind cripple for want of somethin' to do. Well, here's where the big laugh comes. Strange as it may seem, I like you, you big stiff, and I'm not gonna let you go in and get your head punched off, when I know you ain't got a chance of winnin', for a few dirty dollars! I need my bit of the six hundred men we was guaranteed to fight Kennedy the same as you do, but I ain't gonna take it for you gettin' beat up. We'll go broke together and battle our way back. Now if you wanna clout me, go to it!"
The Kid's face was a movie durin' the time I was talkin' and them big hands which was to make him a mint full of kopeks slowly fell at his sides. Then one of 'em shot up and grabbed mine till they must of heard me yell in Siberia.
"I'm all wrong!" he says with that flashin' kid grin of his. "It seems to me, old man, that I should prepare a lot of apologies and present them to you at once; it would save a lot of time. I think I'll rechristen you Gunga Din, for at times there appears to be no question but that you're a better man than I am!"
"Say, listen!" I says, tickled silly that the boy was himself again. "Lay off that Gunga Din stuff. I'm a manager, not a water-bucket holder!"
The Kid's grin widens. "Now that the airy persiflage has been disposed of," he says, grabbin' my hand again, "please believe that I value your friendship as much as I do your—er—managerial ability, and,
