Page:The Leather Pushers (1921).pdf/178

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

for a chance to stick over a haymaker. Then the old master flits about the maddened slugger, rippin' in stingin' hooks and jabs and keepin' up a runnin' fire of conversation which would make a paralytic rabbit take a punch at a Bengal tiger. Till at length, arm weary and discouraged, the pantin' tramp staggers about the ting a crimson, battered hulk that dully wishes only one thing in this wide, wide world, and that's the sound of the final bell!

Every guy has his weak point—even Adam was a apple addict—and these cool-headed glove artists is no exception. The trouble with these flashy boxers is that nine and seven-eighths times out of ten they can't hit. To jazz a well-known sayin', they can lead their man to slaughter, but they cannot make him sink! And the mob don't want no part of these babies which could box ten rounds under a needle shower without gettin' hit by a drop of water. They want to see somethin' fall, and as a result these cool, shifty scientists never get the popularity that comes to a killer of the Dempsey type.

How the so ever, occasionally up pops a miracle which not only does he pack a opiate in each glove, but he's also got somethin' connected with his dome besides a couple of tin ears. He can box with the boxers, slug with the sluggers, and give the gluttons for punishment acute indigestion. Kid Roberts belonged to this class, and it was usin' his cranium when his right cross wasn't enough in his brawl with Gournet, the French champ, which turned certain defeat into a sudden, sensational win.