Page:The Leather Pushers (1921).pdf/299

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"Kid," I says, "since we first hooked up three years ago till we win the heavyweight title, we have took 'em all on regardless of color, weight, religion, or rep. We have ducked nobody. The only reason we ain't gone to the post with the Rock of Gibraltar is because they is no way to get boxin' gloves on it! I know you can take Enright, and I think you can stop any heavy which ever rubbed a foot in rosin and stop 'em the best day they ever seen. Nevertheless and but, we ain't goin' to fight Enright, and the newspapers can howl their heads off!"

Kid Roberts laughs good-naturedly. "Why—because he killed McCabe?" he asks, like he's humorin' a child.

"Exactly!" I says. "Because he killed McCabe, he likewise murdered his chance at the heavyweight title."

"Why, you fool!" says the Kid, becomin' excited, "do you think a thing like that would ever happen to Enright again—that he'd kill a man with a punch? It was an accident—an unfortunate accident, pure and simple. He—"

"The same kind of a accident as sunrise is!" I butts in. "Look here, just what do you think happened in that ring to-night? Just tell me how you got the knockout punch figured."

"There's nothing difficult about that," says the Kid. "You saw it. They were clinched when Enright landed a right uppercut, McCabe going down as the referee broke them. In falling, the poor devil's head hit a poorly padded bit of ring planking and, as the newspaper boys figure it, his head struck with sufficient