Page:The Leather Pushers (1921).pdf/294

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bolt Chance. Give plenty of play for the unnervin' unexpected and—it won't be!

Like the forbidden hooch, confidence has its deadly, high-powered bootleg imitation in Conceit. This often looks like the original, 100-proof bonded stuff—the difference is in the effect. Confidence steadies the ladder of Fame for you and makes the long climb easier. Conceit hides the holes between the rungs, with the results that you fall through.

And now, girls and boys, havin' got all that off my chest, here's a incident in the sensational career of Kid Roberts, which I would like to place before the jury as a good example of all the above.

Within a month after Kid Roberts has finished elevatin' the deaf-and-dumb drama by makin' that movie in which he knocked everybody cold includin' the exhibitors, we have signed for two bouts under the personal direction of Jimmy McManus, the Tex Rickard of his day. We are to get $150,000 for the first muss no matter what happens, and the same amount for the second—provided the Kid is still heavyweight champion. In other words, if we lose our first start, that's all there is, there isn't any more, as Ethel Barrymore was once heard to remark.

Jack Enright, a two-hundred-pounder from New Orleans, which had flashed to the front by the difficult process of winnin' all his brawls in a couple of rounds, and Marty McCabe, another tough bird, hailin' from Seattle, was the Kid's most persistent challengers. It has been almost a year since the Kid win the title, and in that time he hadn't defended it once. So either Enright or McCabe, both goin' great guns and fightin'