The Leather Pushers (1921, G. P. Putnam's Sons)/Round 7
Gray matter pays as big dividends in the prize ring as it does in any other game, and many's the battle-scarred old veteran is in there now takin' on the top-notchers for big guarantees and stallin' off these hard-hittin' but slow-thinkin' young bruisers by simply outguessin' 'em, just as Christy Mathewson pitched winnin' ball long after he was past his prime by usin' his head as somethin' more than a convenient place to hang his cap. It's a real treat to watch the master ring artist (not the knock-'em-dead slugger) at work. Fast as wireless, cool as a January breeze, merciless as a famished tiger, he can do with a pair of four-ounce gloves what the average guy might accomplish with a baseball bat and a ax. He goes around his man like a co-oper around a barrel, makin' him dizzy with lightin' feints and slashin' him to ribbons with jabs that cut and sting like the flick of a bull whip in the hands of a master mule skinner.
The razzin' of the mob which resents his cleverness and craves blood and knockdowns worries him the same way they worry in Hades over the price of foot warmers. He's there for business, and from his expression you'd think him and the guy he's swappin' wallops with was the only two guys in the world, let alone in the clubhouse.
Does the tramp rock him with a chance smash, and he curls a contemptuous lip over his shoulder at the yowlin' pack whilst he clinches to steady himself, then pushes this boloney away and, with a couple of vicious jolts, makes him back-pedal nervously, wilt, and cover up: He never gets excited, never gets mad enough to miss, never stops studyin' his man's weaknesses till the quarrel's over. Floored, he don't lose his head and bounce up before the referee can begin the arithmetic lesson, like the tramp does when he can in fear of the mob's roar of "Yellah!" Instead, he takes a long count—it uses up precious time and gives him a chance to think, and when he does get up, unless he's out on his his feet, the other guy is due for a lively couple of minutes, if not for a knockout!
From the instant this baby steps out at the openin' clang of the old cowbell, he's a student and a finished workman. He's generally got some plan of battle all doped in advance, but if that don't give him immediate results he shifts to another and another with a speed and skill that gives the real lover of boxin' more genuine thrills than a dozen knockdowns. He finds out whether the other guy don't like it in the jaw or body, and works accordin'ly. He discovers whether his little playmate wilts under rough handlin' in the clinches or if rushin' him to the ropes and pinnin' him there makes him wild with his returns. He tries talkin' to him, shakin' a wicked tongue in a effort to stir the other guy into a crazy rage which will make him throw caution to the breezes and tear in wide open, willin' to risk anything for a chance to stick over a haymaker. Then the old master flits about the maddened slugger, rippin' in stingin' hooks and jabs and keepin' up a runnin' fire of conversation which would make a paralytic rabbit take a punch at a Bengal tiger. Till at length, arm weary and discouraged, the pantin' tramp staggers about the ting a crimson, battered hulk that dully wishes only one thing in this wide, wide world, and that's the sound of the final bell!
Every guy has his weak point—even Adam was a apple addict—and these cool-headed glove artists is no exception. The trouble with these flashy boxers is that nine and seven-eighths times out of ten they can't hit. To jazz a well-known sayin', they can lead their man to slaughter, but they cannot make him sink! And the mob don't want no part of these babies which could box ten rounds under a needle shower without gettin' hit by a drop of water. They want to see somethin' fall, and as a result these cool, shifty scientists never get the popularity that comes to a killer of the Dempsey type.
How the so ever, occasionally up pops a miracle which not only does he pack a opiate in each glove, but he's also got somethin' connected with his dome besides a couple of tin ears. He can box with the boxers, slug with the sluggers, and give the gluttons for punishment acute indigestion. Kid Roberts belonged to this class, and it was usin' his cranium when his right cross wasn't enough in his brawl with Gournet, the French champ, which turned certain defeat into a sudden, sensational win.
The Bandsman Shayne mêlée kind of throwed a damper over business for a spell, as the rest of the English fistic stars figured the Kid was too tough for 'em after readin' the punch-by-punch account of that muss. We was about ready to come back to the Home of the Brave when I run into a big English boxin' promoter up at the National Sportin' Club's fights one night. This bird had a concession to put on a mill at no less than Monte Carlo, and by the end of the week I have put up a five-thousand-buck appearance forfeit and signed the Kid to meet anybody the promoter selected for a twenty-round argument at roulette's home town within a month. We was guaranteed twenty thousand iron men and two round-trip tickets, with a privilege of 35 per cent of the gross. Pretty soft, hey?
When I got back to our hut after signin' the articles I found the Kid conspicuous by his absence, so I sit down to look at a bunch of them illustrated sportin' papers without which no American barber shop is properly equipped and which had just been sent to me from home. The first thing that strikes me is how things has changed with the regard to the ads which fills up the back pages. They used to be whole columns of stuff like "Drink Habit Cured with One Dose!" and "Send Us a Buck and We'll Make Him Sober!" but now it's all different. The advertisements which greets the eye these days is: "Own Your Own Still! Complete Brewery, $2," and "Make Your Hooch at Home and Giggle at Prohibition. 3,000 Sure-Fire Recipes, One Case Note!"
Suddenly there is a rap at the door, and I extended the courtesies of our boudoir in a loud but friendly voice. Said door opens, and allows a tall, thin guy of about thirty autumns to ease into the room, remove a pair of yellow gloves, and regard me with a cold and fishy eye. He's wearin' a pair of glasses which looks like spare rims for a flivver, and was dressed in what was like as not the height of fashion somewheres, only I don't know where. A gold-headed cane completes the layout. His openin' remark is a cough. I easily ducked that, and he followed it up with: "As I understand it, I am speaking to the—er—ah—manager of Kane Halli—of Kid Roberts?"
"You are awarded the chiffon ice pick!" I says. "What of it?"
"May I sit down for a moment?" he remarks, glancin' about the room and lettin' forth a slight shudder when he sees the forty-six colored bath robe I had bought for the Kid.
"What d'ye want?" I hollers pleasantly. "Get to the point and be done with it!"
He presents me with a frown and slides into a chair. "I shall get to the point, you may rest assured," he says. "I am a—ah—a friend of Hall—of Kid Roberts, and I have some information to impart to him that—ah—that is so vital to his future welfare that, in order to deliver it to him personally, I have missed my boat connections to Paris."
"That's tough!" I says. "What d'ye want me to do—bust into sobs? The Kid ain't here. Tell me the bad news, and I'll slip it to him the second he comes in."
"That is impossible!" he says, very chilly. "If you are really a—ah—a friend of Roberts, you will find him for me at once!"
I got up and looked him over, and he leans back in the chair and begins to tap one hand in the palm of the other and gaze out the window at the city of London. So I put my hat on the place I bought it for and started for the door.
"Who shall I say is seekin' him?" I asks, hesitatin'.
The mysterious stranger turns loose a yawn, reaches into a side pocket, and hands me a card, on which, from the feel to the naked hand, the letters is raised a foot high. Naturally I glanced at it. It says the followin':
Augustus Robertson-Carrowsmith, 3d.
Sweet Mamma!
"So you're a infielder, hey?" I remarks courteously.
A icy eyebrow goes up. "Beg pardon?" he says.
I waved the card at him. "It says on this you play third, don't it?" I explains.
"Will you be good enough to get Mister—eh—Roberts at once?" he snorts, and gimme a splendid view of his back.
By dumb luck I run into the Kid in the hotel lobby, so I slipped him the card this guy gimme. A short look is all that's needed to make the Kid's naturally fair complexion seven shades lighter and sends his eyebrows into a hard, straight line. He crams the card into his pocket like he wanted to shove it all the ways through, and then follows me into the elevator without a word.
When we stepped into our room Mister Agustus Robertson-Carrowsmith, 3d, got up at once and shoved his hand out to the Kid, which was lookin' him up and down very stern and cold.
"Well, Halliday," says Augustus, "I suppose you must guess the purpose of my visit."
"I haven't the slightest idea why I am so honored," answers the Kid, payin' everything but attention to the other guy's outstreched hand. "Make this interview as brief as possible, Carrowsmith!"
Friend Augustus registers what is known far and wide as a blush. "May we have—ah—privacy?" he inquires, with a slight nod at me.
"Say anything you have to say before this gentleman," snaps the Kid. "Only say it quickly!"
"Very well," bows Augustus, 3d, turnin' his back to me to show his cordiality. "Halliday, I have discovered that you are masquerading under the name of—ah—Kid Roberts, and that—you will pardon me, but I must be plain—and that you are a—ah—a common prize fighter!"
"Well?" says the Kid, foldin' his arms and as cold as a icicle.
This here didn't seem to be just what Augustus had expected. I think he figured on creatin' a sensation at the least. However, he bucked up and went on: "I have come to—ah—to offer you a position with us as—as—ah—well, I am sure father will find something for you to do at—ah—at a nominal salary until you—ah—rehabilitate yourself. In a word, I have come to save you from the humiliating position you have—ah—fallen into through your father's unfortunate—ah—failure. I—"
"Save your breath," the Kid cuts him off. "I am perfectly content as I am!"
"Content!" gasps Augustus, throwin' up his hands and rollin' his eyes to the ceilin'. "Gad, man—are you insane? Kane Halliday a prize fighter! Think if this should become public property—why, damn it, man, you've got to stop this degrading thing! You owe it to your friends, your college, your—"
"Stop!" roars the Kid, his face whiter than the color itself. "How dare you come here and patronize me, you hound! Your father and his gang of legalized cut-throats stripped me and mine to the bone—picked us up, broke us in bits, and threw us away. Took advantage of friendship, trust, and what none but criminals would call opportunity to ruin us, and you dare to offer me an underling's job where I probably would be getting my weekly pittance from the money you wrung from my own father! I owe nothing to my friends—I have no friends—they scurried away like the rats they were from the sinking ship of my father's fortunes. As to my college, it should be proud of me. At least, it didn't turn out a quitter! I took my medicine and I'm making good now on my own. It'll be a long climb back, but I'll get there, Carrowsmith, and when I get there I'll get you. Now go, or I'll further shock your damned hypocritical dignity by throwing you out of my room!"
Augustus gasped, give a shiver, and tried to make a dignified exit. He failed.
The Kid takes out a handkerchief and wipes his hands carefully, though he hadr't touched this bird at all. Then he glances at his watch and whistles. "Hurry up and get into your evening clothes," he barks at me, startin' the water in the bathtub dnd commencin' to strip. "We're going up to the Savoy, where some of the bunch who were in my class at Yale, and happen to be here, are giving me a little dinner to celebrate my approaching contest with the world's champion."
"Yale guys?" I says. "Why, what tha—why, I thought all them old Elis was off you for life since you become a leather pusher?"
"Why?" inquires the Kid. "Because that little rotter Carrowsmith came here and upbraided me?" He curls his lip. "Don't be an ass! Carrowsmith no more represents the real college spirit than a mongrel hound, for instance, represents the spirit of the blooded dog."
"All right, all right," I cuts him off, "go ahead. I'm glad to hear them babies is regular guys—but where do I fit in this here party?"
"Whither I goest, thou goest!" laughs the Kid. "As my friend and manager, you'll be as welcome as I'll be. Come on, snap into it—you have just about time to shave."
"Nothin' stirrin'!" I says. "I belong at a Yale dinner the same way I belong in the White House! My grammar would never stand up under the strain of bein' allowed to roam wild among a lot of cuckoos with F. O. B., B. A., I. E., and the like tacked after their names."
"Come on!" he grins, givin' me what he prob'ly figured was a playful push and which flopped me on top of the bed. "Don't be a crape hanger all your life. These boys are regular fellows. I know you're going to like them, and they're going to like you!"
And, gentle reader, such turned out to be the case. They was half a dozen of them boola-boola birds on hand, most of 'em sons of guys which has $160 for every mongolian in Shanghai, and they all checked up as aces. Anyways you want to look at it, a beaucoup time was had by all with a real gang, and if by some odd coincidence I ever get wed I will ship the plurality of my children to the handiest college, if only for the chance they'll get therein to be regular when they come out!
How the so ever, we met somebody at this dinner which come near costin' Kid Roberts his chance at the world's heavyweight title, about a quarter of a million bucks, and Dolores Brewster. This somebody was the only scrapper in the world I conceded could put Kid Roberts down for the long count. Could trim him without gettin' warmed' up and could trim him to the Queen's taste. Here was a battler which had took 'em all on, regardless of weight, age, color or distance, knocked 'em all kickin', and had never had a scrap that was even close! They all turned into set-ups when they went to the post with this battle-scarred veteran. Why, to give you a idea of just how tough this baby is, they won't even let him fight in America no more! The guy I have reference to is Jack Barleycorn.
Well, Kid Roberts never done nothin' by halves—he never outpointed no guys, he knocked 'em cold—and the next mornin' I catch him orderin' brandy and soda from a bell hop, and he ain't been out of bed five minutes. I give the bell hop the air, and when the Kid banged out of the room a half hour later we was both hoarse, and he had swore that his scrap at Monte Carlo was his last under my management. Still in that humor, he called on Miss Dolores Brewster and managed to get himself in wrong with her. This released the last brake the Kid had on himself, and when I fin'ly dug him up at midnight in a extry swell Piccadilly booze emporium he was buyin' for one and all, and if W. J. Bryan had seen the shape he was in he'd of bust out cryin'. A young army officer which had trailed around with the Kid all night told me they had been gave the raspberry at the Carlton when the Kid climbed up on the bar, announced himself as the only son of Old King Cole, and demanded that a covey of fiddlers be sent to him at once.
Kid Roberts opens a watery eye about noon the next day, drinks between four and twenty-one gallons of ice water, and apologizes to the world at large. He listens to my bawlin' out in silence whilst shavin', and then he sit down and wrote about ninety telegrams to Miss Dolores Brewster, sendin' one. They was no answer, and fin'ly, by the via of the telephone, he found out that Dolores and her dad had gone to Paris, leavin' no word for him what the so ever.
From then on I had my hands full keepin' this big kid within the bounds of reason and away from the festive brew. I give him lectures which would of got me thirty solid weeks on any Chautauqua circuit in the world, and I endeavored to keep right on his back from the time the alarm clock made good in the mornin' till we set the thing at night. But there was times when he managed to slip away, and by the day we hit Monte Carlo, with the battle less than a week off, constant cigarette smokin' had ruined his wind, he was flabby and out of condition, and he didn't give a trout's foot whether he fought Gournet, the guy the English promoter had picked to meet him, or not.
I knew that Dolores Brewster's father would be at the ringside, because the old guy was a blown-in-the-flask fight bug and had promised the Kid he would be there, after seein' him flatten the English champ a few weeks before. Whilst talkin' to us after that brawl Senator Brewster had also let fall the information that he always stopped at the Hotel Crillon when in the city which added "oo-la-la" to our language. So, in a loud and desperate voice I called on a woman for help for the first time in my life. I sit down and wrote a long letter to Miss Dolores Brewster, tellin' her that since her and the Kid fell out he was goin' to Gehenna at a speed which would make a nervous greyhound look like a crippled snail. I explained just what he was doin', just what was at stake, and that I was playin' her as my last card. I also worked in the fact that unless Kid Roberts pulled himself together at once, this French battler would murder him, and the disgrace would bury him, addin' that the Kid's future was in her hands and that a mere note from her with a couple of "dears" and a few mentions of the preposition "love" in it would make everything Jake.
I mailed the above to the Hotel Crillon and give myself up to the art of wishin'.
Well, I run a dead heat with Aladdin, and he had a lamp. The day of the bout no less than Dolores Brewster breezed into Monte Carlo herself! This was beyond my wildest nightmares, and I was over to the hotel she phoned me from in one runnin' jump. In the lobby I bump into "Honest Joe" Hammond, which, with a bunch of other globe-trotters in his line, is makin' book on the fight.
"What about this muss?" he says, pullin' me aside before I can duck him. "I'm layin' three to one Roberts cops, but I'm gettin' a big play from some American and English jobbies on this Gournet guy. It don't sound reasonable. Are you levelin' with the Kid in this one?"
"We level in all of 'em!" I says. "You see what's goin' on, and you know as much as I do. The Kid's gone cuckoo and ain't trained a day—that's the low down between you and me—but we have cooked nothin' up. Would I be liable to lay down to this Frog with a crack at the world's title in sight? The Kid ain't in condition, but—"
"I don't care if he's on crutches!" butts in "Honest Joe." "If you're tryin', that's all I wanna know. So far I'll go to the cleaners for sixty thousand men if Kid Roberts don't ash home in front. So you can see!"
I reached in my pocket and handed him a roll of fifteen one-thousand-buck notes, or "grands," as them addicted to slang calls 'em.
"Bet this for me, Joe," I says, "at them 3 to 1 odds you was talkin' about, and take 2 per cent of the loot for your commission. How 'bout that?"
"Honest Joe" merely scribbled a receipt, gimme it, grinned, and drifted away.
An hour later me and Miss Dolores Brewster is in the world's famous casino where every time the roulette wheel stops spinnin' somebody goes cuckoo with either joy or grief. From all the reliable reports we can get, Kid Roberts is in there somewheres—six hours before he fights Monsieur Henri Gournet, heavyweight champion of France!
I planted Dolores Brewster in a little loungin' room off the big gamblin' saloon, whilst I shoved hithers and you through the mob lookin' for the Kid. On my travels I pass to one side of a bird which looks terrible familiar, and in a second I got him pegged as no less than this Carrowsmith stiff which bawled the Kid out in London for bein' a pug. Him and a couple of French guys, all fairly well lit up, is chatterin' away and I was all set to eavesdrop a bit when I see Dolores makin' her way to the long roulette table in the middle of the big room.
I was beside the Kid's future bride when she pushed her way through the hysterical mob around the table to the back of the Kid's chair. Even the wildest of 'em give way for Dolores after one look, and I heard many's the gasp which the turn of the roulette wheel had nothin' to do with! At the right of the Kid was a bunch of hard-lookin' guys, leanin' almost on top of him, apparently watchin' his play and makin' cracks to each other in French. I didn't like the way they was lookin' at the Kid and then at each other, but I didn't get no chance to take that part of it up, because Dolores leaned right over the Kid and whispered somethin' in his ear.
For a instant he looked straight ahead with his eyes starin' open and his jaw droppin' like he couldn't believe his ears. Then he got slowly up, swung around, and faced Dolores. There they stood lookin' at each other, like that crowded, buzzin' room was a deserted island and they had each discovered for the first time that they was somebody else on it. I noticed this Carrowsmith guy and his two pals pushin' through the outside fringe of the crowd, and the tough lookers which had been hangin' around the Kid's chair also seemed to be gettin' uncomfortably close. As I reached down to grab some of the Kid's winnin's, which he seemed to of lost all interest in, I remember feelin' a sudden chill.
Then comes the movie!
Dolores stepped back, motionin' for the Kid to follow, and in doin' so bumped squarely into Carrowsmith. This bimbo made no attempt to get out of her way, but stood there with one hand on her shoulder, grinnin' somethin' in her ear. At the same minute the Kid seen him for the first time, but the sneer of recognition was wiped off his features when Dolores drawed back, her skin flamin', and slapped Carrowsmith in the face. The two guys with him, grabbin' her arms, begin to laugh, and then, with a hoarse snarl, the Kid dove through the mob sendin' 'em scatterin' right and left. The roughnecks immediately closed in after him, and one of 'em stuck out his foot but missed trippin' the Kid, when a chair caught him square in the back of the neck and closed his interest in the further proceedin's. I swing a mean chair!
The Kid's first rush landed him in front of Carrowsmith and his two stewed allies, and they went down so hard they was all cold sober when they hit the floor. The Kid wheeled and swung Dolores up on the roulette table, and with his back to it, took the plunge of the mob with his bare fists, pumpin' 'em back and forth as regular as a steam riveter and with about the same execution. Usin' what was left of a gilt chair as a persuader, I worked my way to him, layin' about me right merrily. I have been in some busy corners in my time, but for fifteen minutes of action and thrills the battle of Monte Carlo leads the league! It is safe to say that this gilded joint never staged nothin' like this before and never will no more—this here world's famous gamblin' palace, where when a guy ruins himself they give him a gat and ask him will he kindly step out in the garden before usin' it, so's not to muss up the place and disturb the other players. But, then, they never had no mob in there before like the Roberts-Gournet fight brung there either! Women begin to faint and scream respectively and perfect strangers fell to maulin' each other with a gusto. By the time the dinky little coppers with their trick swords was swarmin' into the place, the Kid and me, shieldin' Miss Dolores Brewster between us, walloped our way out a side door to the car I had brung her there in.
We dropped Miss Brewster a block from her hotel, so's that if the law was awaitin' us she wouldn't be mixed up in the thing. My idea, however, was that the gendarmes, havin' got to the Casino a trifle late for the big show, would have no idea who started the thing, and Gournet's merry men wouldn't tip 'em off because if we got pinched and couldn't fight they couldn't collect their bets. I had it about right.
We got up to our room without no trouble, except that we widened many a eye and caused a epidemic of shoulder shruggin' among the inhabitants of the lobby as we crossed to the—eh—lift (foreign stuff). There is no question that we was a couple of tough-lookin' babies! Half of my suit was elsewhere. I didn't have no hat and I was featurin' a rapidly closin' left eye. The Kid looked like a new English copper after his first night patrollin' a beat in Cork. Both his hands was badly bruised and swollen, and in two or three hours he was goin' to climb into the ring against Monsieur Henri Gournet.
He never said a word from the time we left Miss Brewster till we got safely in our room. Then he walked up to the mirror and give himself a long onceover, lettin' forth a sigh that rattled the window shades.
"Cheer up, Kid," I says, slappin' him on a gory shoulder. "We have qualified as union movie heroes this afternoon! Look what we done—we bust up the gamblin' hell, rescued the fair damsel, knocked the villain for a row of ash cans, and to-night we—"
He throws off my arm and tears himself away from the glass.
"Let me alone. I feel like a beast!" he snarls, rippin' off what's left of his shirt and hurlin' it in a corner. "That hound Carrowsmith was right," he adds. "I have become degraded!" Whilst he's talkin' he jerks out the bottom drawer of the bureau and slams it on the floor. "Here," he growls, "have a porter come up and clean out this mess!" The next minute he's in the bathroom under the shower.
"This mess" was several bottles of hooch which had been the Kid's travelin' companions for his brief tour as Young King Cole. That was the first and last time the Kid hit up the red-eye whilst I had him, and after all he'd done he was entitled to one joy ride—hey?
We got down to the arena where the slaughter was staged and into the ring about ten that night without no trouble from the police. The crowd was no bigger than the population of Nebraska, only more mixed, and when they seen the Kid's somewhat battered appearance as he climbed shakily through the ropes there was quite a shout went up. The French champ looked twenty pounds heavier than the clean-muscled Kid, and was covered with fur like a grizzly. I walked right over to him and shoved through his handlers.
"Lafayette, we are here!" I remarks. "Them gunmen of yours failed to cook us this afternoon, and we aim to square up with you in the next couple of rounds. Don't try no tricks to-night, Frog, or—"
"Je ne comprends pas, monsieur!" he butts in.
"Try it and I'll murder you!" I says, and turns my attention to the Kid.
He needed it. He was shaky and used up from the afternoon's mêlée, disgusted with himself for lettin' the beautiful Dolores see him in that rough and tumble, and the hostile, foreign crowd was shootin' his nerves to pieces. He wanted the thing over with, and he glared across the ring at Henri Gournet till friend Henri begin lickin' his lips and turnin' his face the other way.
The French referee was as excited as a bride lookin' up time-tables for her first honeymoon trip, and he must of learned the English language from a ouija board, because all he knowed was "Yes" and "No." I hadn't the faintest idea of what his intructions was, and the next minute the party is on.
It was easy to see before they had exchanged a half dozen blows that the Kid carried the heavier guns, but Gournet, like most of them foreign scrappers which gets anywheres, was a boxer rather than a slugger. He was satisfied to carry on the battle at long range and outpoint his man, whereas and to wit the Kid wanted to end it with a punch and took a dozen wallops without seemin'ly tryin' to duck 'em in order to land one crusher. He chased his man all over the ring, but the Frog was clever and kept slidin' along the ropes, keepin' the Kid off balance with a very sweet straight left that pecked at the edges of the Kid's unhealed wounds of the afternoon and opened 'em up. The mob was yellin' for the Frenchman to take a chance and stand up to the Kid, but Gournet turned a deaf ear to their entreaties and continued to back pedal, jab, and clinch whenever the Kid shook him up. Kid Roberts was as wild as a infuriated tiger and missed a dozen haymakers, each miss makin' him wilder and all of which tickled the mob silly. Toward the end of the round he fin'ly connected with a savage right to the body and Gournet's grunt could be distinctly heard in South Wales. His knees sagged and he dove wildly into a clinch, but the Kid shook him off with a grin and drove him against the ropes with a left to the jaw, one inch too high or that would of been the wind-up. Quick as a flash the Kid was on top of him, suddenly cool and unhurried as he measured him with a light left and prepared to smash over the sleep producer. Gournet suddenly stuck a feeble left in the Kid's face. They was no steam at all behind the punch, yet the Kid staggered back, shook his head from side to side, and then was short by a foot with both hands right at the bell, which could hardly be heard over the uproar which greeted the Frenchman's narrow escape.
The mob gave the Frog a ovation as he stumbled to his corner, and his seconds jumped in to give him a kiss! The Kid slumped down heavily on his stool and dug at his eyes with his gloves.
"You must have let some of that alcohol you rubbed me with get into my eyes, you fool!" he growls at me. "I can hardly see this fellow and they're smarting terribly. Wash my eyes out, quick!"
I pushed back his head and examined the glims in question. No wonder the Kid's judgment of distance had been way off. They was red-rimmed and bloodshot, and I bet they was painful! I put handlers on 'em with sponges soaked in ice water, and then I looked Over to Gournet's corner—thinkin'. Bendin down fin'ly I sniffed at the Kid's eyes and in two jumps I was in the Frenchman's corner, divin' through his handlers and grabbin' up his gloves before them babies knowed what it was all about. One smell was ample.
That big stiff had soaked both his gloves in oil of mustard!
New? No! That one had whiskers on it when the one of puttin' lead in a glove was born. Can't be done! Why not? Who examines a fighter's gloves once the bout's under way? Any old-time scrapper or his pilot will grin with remembrance when he reads this. It's pulled quite frequently in the tall timbers to this day.
Well, the referee had rushed over after me to see what was the trouble and the coppers was havin' a merry time tryin' to keep the interested attendance out of the ring. I immediately claimed the fight on a foul, and the English promoter, the referee, and Gournet's manager pulled clocks on me and gimme five seconds to get out of the ring. I danced around 'em, pointin' to the Frog's gloves and then to my handlers workin' over the Kid's eyes, but they was nothin' stirrin'. The promoter yells that we won't get a nickel if we don't fight, and he would also see that the authorities found out who started the fracas at the Casino.
At this point "Honest Joe" Hammond sticks his head under the ropes and begs me to go ahead and kill this Frenchman, otherwise him and his pals would be hit for more than seventy thousand bucks. In the midst of the argument the bell rung for the second round, and I hollered to the Kid to stay on his stool, at the same time wavin' my handlers down and steppin' outside the ropes myself so's this referee wouldn't disqualify us for me bein' in the ring. Gournet dances out to the center, smilin' at his friends, and the referee steps over to where Kid Roberts is still sittin' on his stool, half blinded and crazy with pain. He gives my boy one look and then, raisin' his arms, begins countin' him out as he stt there. I plowed my way around the mob to his corner, stood the perfectly legal count till the referee reached "nine," and then shoved the Kid flounderin' into the ring.
Instantly Gournet swung his right to the jaw, and the Kid crashed to the mat, rolled over on his stomach, and was up at eight, weavin' back and forth on his feet, one glove to his eye and gropin' for the Frenchman with the other like the blind man he was. The crowd had gone stark crazy, and I chewed my lips till the hot blood run down my chin at the sight of this boy, which I'd brung within a foot of the world's championship, bein' slaughtered in cold blood by this third-rate, foulfightin' Frog tramp. Again the Kid hit the mat from a hurricane of lefts and rights to the head, and again was on his feet before the fatal "ten," grabbin' the Frenchman around the body and holdin' on for his life. Wow! You should of heard that crowd! Gournet had now gone cuckoo himself at the prospect of knockin' out the wonderful Kid Roberts—a thing which never entered his head when he entered the ring. He chopped himself free and twice more floored Roberts, and I goi a couple of towels ready to hurl in, with my heart busted into little pieces which seemed to clog up the blood in my veins! As I bunched up the towels, I stuck my head up under the lower rope where the Kid was on one knee at the count of "seven." His head come slowly around and he looked at me.
"Stay down, Kid—we're through here!" I bellers hoarsely, and raised my arm to throw in the rags and save the boy from what looked like downright murder.
He shakes his head, and with a last look at me deliberately winks!
He was raisin' himself to his other knee when "Honest Joe" tore the towels from my hand with what is known as a round oath. Kid Roberts got to hisfeet, stumbled around like a movie drunk, and started what looked like a last despairin' swing at Gournet's jaw. In his eagerness to get it over with, the Frenchman slipped to his knees rushin' in, and the blow just grazed his hair as he was goin' down. On the second the Kid reaches over and helps him to his feet, though he nearly fell on him doin' it. "J'en suis très fâché, mon ami!" he pants with a crimson smile.
The Frenchman stops short with a look of absolute surprise on his face which would of been comical if the situation hadn't been what it was. The idea of this poor battered boob, which could scarcely see and which he had fouled from the go in, apologizin' for a plain accident seemed to paralyze him for a second. He faltered in his stride, unconsciously lowerin' his guard, and in that same second the Kid suddenly straightened up and crashed him face down on the gore-spattered canvas with a right hook to the button of the jaw. He never moved a muscle while the dazed referee counted him out—fifteen seconds, accordin' to "Honest Joe" Hammond's stop watch.
So that was that!
On the ways back to Paris I was busy balancin' our cash, and the Kid was talkin' to "Honest Joe," which seemed to have lost ten years of his age somewheres.
"—So when I found I couldn't see, with that oil of mustard biting at my eyes," the Kid was sayin', "I realized that I was in for a severe beating—that Gournet can hit!—unless I met that fellow at his own game, matched him trick for trick. Aside from the first knockdown in the second round, I wasn't floored! I took those falls deliberately to clear my head, to think, and incidentally to allow that stuff to evaporate from my eyes. I decided then to try a little—ah—psychology. I figured that a sudden, unexpected mental shock would momentarily halt the Frenchman's wild lunges—interrupt his thinking apparatus which was timing his blows. So when he slipped I instantly seized that second to act. I helped him up, you remember, and apologized courteously and stood off, apparently waiting for him to recover his poise. That unexpected act had the desired effect. Astonished, he hung fire and—well, I knew if I ever landed a solid punch he was whipped!"
"Ehheh," says Joe. "Well, that's fine—fine business. But if I was you, boy, I wouldn't draw them finishes so close hereafter!" He mops his brow with a handkerchief. "Did you not get up from that stool, they would of took me down the line for about seventy thousand fish! As it lays, I win twenty-eight thousand on the fight. I took ten thousand even from one guy alone."
"Who was that hick?" I asks, from idle curiosity.
"It's a funny thing," says Joe. "This dumb-bell didn't even see the quarrel. He was the guy which tried to wreck the Casino to-day, y'know, and it seems he got pinched. He gimme his card—" Joe searches his vest and pulls out a paste-board. "Here it is," he says. "His name's Carrowsmith and—what are you guys laughin' at?"