Page:The Leather Pushers (1921).pdf/166

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as tall, and before he ever raised a glove I knowed he had been to the races many's the time before, by the way he climbed through the ropes of the trainin' ring. He claimed he was entitled Gunner Enright and was due to go to the post himself in a couple of weeks. He says likewise that he wants experience more than anything else and would give the Kid all the limberin' up he could stand for two pounds a week and board.

Gunner Enright had been in our midst just one hour, English time, when I was fallin' over my own feet makin' him propositions to come back to the U. S. under my management, for I seen that this bimbo could knock two-thirds of our second-rate heavies for a row of refuse containers. Kid Roberts was as happy as a bride winnin' her first argument and promised this guy a bonus if he trimmed the Engish title holder, because the Gunner was givin' him the first real workouts he'd had since we hit the old country. He was fast, he was clever, he could hit, and he could take it, and that's all even the A. E. F. could do, hey?

Gunner Enright told me he'd think over my proposition to come back with us to the formerly Land of the Spree, and when I asked him was this Bandsman Shayne a false alarm or a beaucoup puncher, the Gunner curls his wolf's lip and pans the English champ for half a hour. He claims the box-fightin' musician is as yellah as the Chinese flag, has ducked either twelve or eighty-six chances to meet him, and that Kid Roberts should put him away with three or four clouts at the utmost.

A few days before the large clash the Kid draws