Page:The Leather Pushers (1921).pdf/191

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of the mob with his bare fists, pumpin' 'em back and forth as regular as a steam riveter and with about the same execution. Usin' what was left of a gilt chair as a persuader, I worked my way to him, layin' about me right merrily. I have been in some busy corners in my time, but for fifteen minutes of action and thrills the battle of Monte Carlo leads the league! It is safe to say that this gilded joint never staged nothin' like this before and never will no more—this here world's famous gamblin' palace, where when a guy ruins himself they give him a gat and ask him will he kindly step out in the garden before usin' it, so's not to muss up the place and disturb the other players. But, then, they never had no mob in there before like the Roberts-Gournet fight brung there either! Women begin to faint and scream respectively and perfect strangers fell to maulin' each other with a gusto. By the time the dinky little coppers with their trick swords was swarmin' into the place, the Kid and me, shieldin' Miss Dolores Brewster between us, walloped our way out a side door to the car I had brung her there in.

We dropped Miss Brewster a block from her hotel, so's that if the law was awaitin' us she wouldn't be mixed up in the thing. My idea, however, was that the gendarmes, havin' got to the Casino a trifle late for the big show, would have no idea who started the thing, and Gournet's merry men wouldn't tip 'em off because if we got pinched and couldn't fight they couldn't collect their bets. I had it about right.

We got up to our room without no trouble, except that we widened many a eye and caused a epidemic