the place, and the referee for this quarrel. This wasn't our fault. Kid Roberts had about the same interest in who, where, and when he was goin' to box as I have in the price of putty at Budapest. Like all champions, he figured himself invincible. Understand, the boy didn't brag about it; Kid Roberts and conceit was as far apart as 6 and 6,000. He looked on himself as bein' unbeatable as calmly as he regarded the risin' sun—but also, with the same belief that it was a fact. From the time I bought his contract from Dummy Carney for a hundred fish when he was a nervous, green, preliminary boloney till the day he quit the ring, the Kid ducked nobody, drawed no color lines, or argued over weights, distance, or referees. He left everything to my judgment, and the tougher they come the better.
So, bein' around New York, and havin' no more interest in Knockout Pierce than he ever did in any of his comin' opponents, this delay in cinchin' the fight tickled the Kid silly.
For one thing, it give him some time to devote to Dolores Brewster—which would of caused Cleopatra to jump in the handiest lake—and for another thing, it give him a chance to do some campaignin' for her father, which at that time was runnin' for reëlection to the U. S. Senate. Dolores headed a committee of Janes, whilst the Kid had organized a bunch of his ex-playmates from sweet old Yale and went hithers and you about the State makin' speeches for Senator Brewster. By a strange coincidence, as we remark on the campus, the Senator was a former New Haven cut-up himself.
