Page:The Leather Pushers (1921).pdf/279

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able to take care of himself, and walked away. Kid Roberts raised his eyebrows, but says nothin'.

As the time drawed near for the filmin' of the large fight scene, the indications was that a excitin' time would be had by all. The Kid's nerves had been about shot to pieces by the constant abuse of little Van Dyke regardin' his actin' and the deliberate, silent contempt with which Nada Nice treated him when they wasn't workin' together. Young Hamilton had got so upstage you couldn't talk to him at all, and it was plain and also amusin' to everybody on the lot that he had went cuckoo over Nada, which seemed to take that fact for granted—bein' the type of Jane which cannot understand why every guy she meets don't go out and commit suicide at the thoughts of havin' to live without her.

Knockout Burns kept after Hamilton every time they got within speakin' distance on the lot and the Kid wasn't around. He rode that boy from mornin' till night, darin' him to slip out somewheres and go to the post with him again, callin' him a quitter and a big false alarm which he would murder if he ever got him in a ring for a finish fight. Lookin' back, I often wonder how Hamilton stood it, but stand it he did, contentin' himself with merely smilin' sarcastically at the blah-blahin' Knockout and never a word of a comeback. Frequently the Knockout's remarks got so raw that I shut him up myself, but beyond a tightenin' of jaw and a glintin' of eye once or twice, Hamilton never give him a tumble.

The day they're goin' to shoot the fight between the Kid and Hamilton, which winds up the picture, I'm