to the mat, and each time he staggered to his feet spatterin' gore on the reporters, with the crowd a pack of maniacs. Right before the bell the Kid turns to the referee and asks him to stop it, but that guy shakes his head and motions him to go on. With a dyin' flurry Kelly rushed again, drivin' a jarrin' right swing to the head, but the Kid drove him back on his heels with a beautifully timed left hook, and as Kelly bounced off the ropes Roberts put both hands to the face, dumpin' him on his back in his corner as cold as a Eskimo's front yard. The kind-hearted referee took plenty of time with the count so's to give Kelly a chance to get up and take some more, but the bell at "nine" saved him. His handlers hadda lift him up, drag him to his stool, and hold him straight on it, still peacefully slumberin'.
When the Kid come to his corner I started to slap him on the back and shake his glove, but he waved me off.
"I'm through!" he pants. "I'm not going in there and hit that poor devil any longer. This isn't a contest; it's wanton brutality! That fellow hasn't a chance with me, and he's been punished enough. Get me someone else and I'll box him the rest of the ten rounds so we'll get our money, or have the referee stop this thing I'm not a murderer!"
"He'll never be able to answer the next bell," I says soothin'ly. "He's as dead as Napoleon right now. You just step to the middle of the ring at the gong and we cop!"
I slipped down under the ropes and shoved my way through the howlin' mob on the en route to the box
