Page:The Leather Pushers (1921).pdf/213

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father and we got that all jake. When the time comes to start trainin' for the big fight, you got a heavy job on out of town, get me? Away we go. You knock the champ for a row of milk cans, come back, show the old man your movie and vaudeville contracts which runs over $175,000 for next year; tell him why you didn't confess all before, that you never fought under your real name, anyways, so that part's all right, and if he don't kiss and make up—"

But the Kid is dancin' around and huggin' me till the bell hops is wonderin' which one of them cheated and sold him a pint.

"Enough, enough!" he cackles. "Good Lord, man, give me credit for some imagination. That's my one chance, an appeal to dad's sense of humor—and he has one. Besides, your stunt probably isn't half as despicable as it sounds. After all, it's for dad, even if we are deceivin' him, and in the end I'll tell him the whole business, of course."

"Say," I says, "I bet if your father ever seen you mixin' it up he'd be yellin' his head off and become a fight bug for life! Them dignified guys is all alike. I know a supreme court judge which got throwed out of a movie theatre for gettin' the hystericals over haplin. C'mon, we got to work fast. Call up Miss Brewster and the Senator and wise 'em up, so's they don't innocently tip off your father that we're a couple of first-class liars!"

Like wire walkin', this here proved easier said than done. At the first blush, the delicious Dolores says they is nothin' stirrin' on stallin' old man Halliday as far as she is concerned; what kind of a person would