Fighting Blood (Witwer)/Round 11
Once upon a time there was a fellow which wrote slews of poetry and bounded around rejoicing in the tasty name of Jean La Fontaine. Among the many rare gems which rolled off the end of his busy pen was the following wise crack.
Jean said it. The more us human beings is told to keep something quiet, the more we want to tell the world about it. You know yourself that the best way to put a secret in general circulation is to whisper it to somebody with the request, "Don't breathe a word of this to a soul!" The next day everybody but Little Red Riding Hood knows all about it and there's no use of you getting sore, because if it was a secret, why did you tell anybody in the first place?
Well, I am about to tell a secret which has been nestling in my manly bosom for quite a while. Me and Hurricane Ryan both swore we would never under no circumstances mention a word of this without the other's consent, but Hurricane has released me from my oath. Hurricane Ryan ain't heavyweight champion no more so he don't care, yet that night in Mr. Brock's garage—but I guess I better tell it all and be done with it!
After I stopped Jack Martin, I again found I had practically fought myself out of a job. The only boys left in the light-heavyweight division that I ain't already slapped for a goal is boloneys that don't know a straight left from the timekeeper. A bout between me and the entire lot of these babies wouldn't draw sixty-two cents to the box office if they was allowed to come in with bats in their hands, so the promoters lay off me. This tickles Judy, which is still crazy to see me get out of the game and settle down as a solid business man, but it burns me up, because what's the use of being a champion if you can't work at it? Instead of being worth a possible half million to me, my title don't mean nothing, on the account I get no chance to perform.
Like Alexander the Great, my favorite character out of the big, thick Ancient History I got, I crave more worlds to conquer. So thinking matters over, I make up my mind that if I can't get no light-heavies in there with me I'll fight a heavy weight and be done with it. But I got no desire to try wading through a lot of these two-hundred-pound clowns, any one of which might lean their weight on me in a clinch and make me round-shouldered. I want the heavyweight champion, or nobody!
So I startle my playmates, the sport writers and even Nate, by quietly slipping over to the New York newspaper offices and challenging Hurricane Ryan, world's heavyweight champion, to a fracas with his crown at stake. As I hold the title in the light-heavyweight division, I figure a battle between two champions should draw like a poultice.
My challenge is printed in the morning papers and the evening editions comes out with Hurricane Ryan's answer through his pilot, Curley Oliver, who just laughs me off. He claims Hurricane Ryan is ready and willing to defend his title against a legitimate contender at all times, but he's got no desire to spank babies. The big stiff. Oliver calls attention to the fact that Hurricane Ryan is almost thirty pounds heavier and four inches taller than me and has a equally big advantage in every important measurement of a fighter. In fact, says this dizzy nutmeg, the difference in size between me and Hurricane Ryan is about like the one between Dempsey and Carpentier and he don't think the public wants to see a duplicate of that "fight." Of course, that was all applesauce. What made the heavyweight champion unpartial to climbing through the ropes with me was my record—30 knockouts in 34 fights!
But the sport writers seems to side with Hurricane Ryan and with the exception of a few which like me personally, why, they refuse to take my challenge with a straight face. Even Nate and Kelly tells me to lay off Ryan.
"He's a little too big and burly for us, kid," says Nate. "And, another thing, Ryan is nobody's fool. I see him take Jim Lang a couple of months ago and you know how fast this Lang is and how he can sock. Well, in the third round, Ryan hit Lang on the jaw so hard he throwed Lang's knee out of joint!"
"And Lang outweighed Ryan a good fifteen pounds!" chimes in Knockout Kelly. "If I was you, Gale, P'd forget about Hurricane Ryan, because in a scuffle with that baby the best you can look for is the worst of it, no foolin'! A champ is a chump to go out of his class into a heavier one for a fight. You know the old sayin', 'A good big man can always beat a good little man!' Outside of the time you and Frankie Jackson hit the mat together, you never been knocked cold in your life—why go out of your way to get kayoed?"
"Listen, you couple of crape hangers," I says. "I'm going to keep riding Hurricane Ryan till he agrees to battle me and if you think I'm kidding you're crazy! To hear you dumbells talk you'd think I was a pushover. You don't see none of 'em get up and laugh when I sock 'em, do you? Well, Ryan won't get up either. I seen him step a couple of times and I think he's a mark for a right hook—my right hook! After I smack him a couple of times him being bigger than me won't mean anything, because he'll be bent over to my size if not lower, and don't think he won't. Anyways, even if he knocks me kicking I'll still be light-heavyweight champ, because Ryan can't make the weight in that class. If I stop him I'll be world's heavyweight champion—I'll hold two titles, think of that!"
"Well," says Nate, "I think you're cuckoo myself, but I will say this much—when a Gale and a Hurricane meet there should be some battle whilst it lasts!"
There was all of that.
While I am waiting for this big blah Ryan to give me a tumble, I spend considerable hours stalling around Ajariah Stubbs's drug store, as usual. To keep my brain limbered up for—the time when I am going to startle the business world, I'm still dressing his windows and trying to arrange his stock in a attractive way for him. When I was back of his fountain I was always thinking up new drinks and giving them fancy names to attract the trade. The bozo he's got working for him now is just a dumbell which is simply interested in the fact that at six o'clock he gets off. He'll be a soda jerk all his life.
Anyways, one day I am back in the syrup room, pottering around with the different flavors and trying my hand at making a batch of chocolate syrup, a thing at which I was very fluent once upon a time, when a idea forces its way to the top of my head. I make up my mind I will invent a new drink—some unalcoholic thirst-quencher which will sweep the nation like jazz did. I figure that right then when even its worst enemies was beginning to take Prohibition seriously, there would be millions in a drink of some kind which would present the drinker with a mild kick without making him want to climb flagpoles and sing quartette by himself. A drink which would be relished by everybody in the family from baby to grandpop. Make it tasty, Volsteady, give it a catchy name, put it in a nobby bottle and sell it for, say, ten cents the copy and then just sit back and watch the dimes roll in!
The more I think about this, the more frantic I get to put it across and during the next few days I ruined most of old Ajariah's stock of syrups. Still, I ain't charging him nothing for my sales stimulating stunts, so it's even Stephen. I mixed chocolate, orange and coffee, strawberry with paregoric and rootbeer, throwed lemon, sweet spirits of niter and peach together, tried out a medley of pineapple, aromatic spirits of ammonia, pepsin bismuth and yeast—well, figure out some more combinations for yourself. I tried everything!
Judy, Knockout Kelly and Spence Brock, follow my experiments with the greatest of interest. They think I can do anything and that it's only a question of hours before I'll assemble a mixure of flavors into a fascinating drink which will make me as rich and famous as custard. But there's one jazzbo in Drew City which sneers at my efforts to lift myself out of the ruck and get somewheres. That's Rags Dempster. Rags pours sarcastical laughs on my attempts to invent a national drink and freely predicts a brilliant failure for me. Still I kept mixing and pouring and pouring and mixing. However, after either 85 or 250 combinations of syrups fails to do anything more startling than make me and my friends deadly sick, I give up my experiments for the time being. For one thing, I have got te wait till me and my volunteer tasters recovers. But I wasn't through with this idea yet by no means. I was going to compose a drink which would make the country wild and make me the same as a millionaire or die in the attempt!
About this time, Drew City was treated to the choice scandal of the year and for all I know the natives are talking about it yet. The New York papers comes in as usual one day on the 4:15 local and within a half a hour you couldn't of bought one in town for $54,000. The reason is a picture of Rags Dempster's father on the front page and above it in great, big, black letters it says the following:
Police Seek J. Rodney Dempster
$7,000,000 Embezzlement Charged!
Underneath is about nine columns explaining matters and there was plenty to explain about that seven million bucks! According to the newspapers, this mock turtle has dropped not only his own bankroll, and Dempster was worth important money, but he has ruined all the investors and his carpet factory by losing their jack in Wall Street. Seven million dollars—sweet mamma, the mere mention of that much sugar gives me a thrill! One thing I must say for old man Dempster, he was no petty larceny crook, was he?
Judge Tuckerman got hooked for $5,000 in the crash and poor old Ajariah Stubbs had $6,500 of his dough amputated through Mr. J. Rodney Dempster being a burn guesser on the stock market. The carpet mill shuts down for the second time in its history—this time, for good. About a thousand people is throwed out of work and if Rags's father ever does show up in Drew City again he won't have a Chinaman's chance—they'll string him up from the nearest lamp-post sure as there's a Hindu in Hindustan!
Well, as the results of his male parent's nasty trick, Rags becomes about as popular in Drew City as a fan salesman would be at the North Pole. The fast bunch from the college, which was supposed to be his friends when he was circulating money with both hands, falls away from him like leaves off a tree in Autumn and the rest of the populace duck him the same as if he's a mad dog. Personally, I felt sorry for Rags, I did for a fact, in spite of him fouling me, time and time again. Just look at the jam he was in. His old man was in Europe, trying to hide from all the coppers in the world, he himself was flat broke and unequipped to earn any dough because he'd never had to work at nothing and even his imported car and the palace his family lived in was put up at auction so's the creditors can get a small piece of their money back.
I think Life itself is about the most interesting movie any of us will ever see—a rip roaring comedy drama with the plot changing all the time. We're stars in it today and supers tomorrow. Six years ago I was a burn and Rags was a millionaire's son. Now I got a chance at a million and Rags is the tramp. While I been battling my ways to fame and fortune, this bird has went steadily down. I don't particularly gloat over that, I think Rags got a tough break. Take eny kid, give him a weekly drawing account like a bank president's, let him loaf through college and then suddenly take everything away from him and throw him eut on his own. If the kid makes good after that, it's his fault not yours, but you can take the credit if he goes wrong! When I think of Rags I don't regret having missed college as much as I used to regret it. Having to struggle for ghe mere right to live since I been eight years old has learned me more than I'd ever get inaclass room. I'm used to bad breaks as well as good ones, and when things go all wrong I don't crumple up—I hop to it and make 'em all right. Nothing unexpected can ever happen to me, because I expect anything!
I meet Rags on the street one day some time after the news about his father reached Drew City. As a rule I used to pass by him without as much as a nod, because I liked him the same way I like to get run over, but now that he's down and out I didn't want to kick him, I wanted to help him up to his feet. Live and let live is my motto and it's as good a motto as any. So I stopped him and held out my hand.
"Rags," I says, "I certainly was sorry to hear about your father. I bet it's all a mistake and when he gets back from Europe he'll probably explain everything and there'll be nothing to it. In the meanwhile, let's forget our private war. If a few hundred—or more—will help you out till you hit your stride again, I'll be tickled to loan you whatever you think you need."
The look of surprise which come over his face when I stopped him gives way to a sneer. He looks me up and down like I'm something the cat dragged in on a rainy night and my outstretched hand could of been in Nicarauga as far as he's concerned.
"Mind your own affairs, will you?" he snarls, "What my father does is no concern of yours. I need no assistance from an illiterate pugilist—I'll have more money within a year than you'll ever see! I already have something you'll never have—brains and breeding. Step aside and allow me to pass!"
I stepped aside—in fact, I stepped right out of his life. What else would you want me to do after that?
Well, my next imitation is to attend the auction of the Dempster mansion "and contents," as it says on the handbills which Constabule Watson tacks all over town. There's a big mob there, but most of 'em come to kid instead of bid. Rags's big English car finally goes under the hammer for a song. I forget the name of the song. Mrs. Willcox gets a swell set of wicker porch furniture for fifty bucks. Judy picked up a lot of potted plants for almost nothing and Knockout Kelly got a marble lawn bench for thirty-five fish that you couldn't duplicate in New York under a couple of hundred and which he needs like he needs two more ears. I stood apart and just watched the entertainment till Nate starts to ride me. He says this is the chance of a lifetime to get something for nothing and I am a sap for not sitting in. At this point the auctioneer and the sheriff has a conference. The auctioneer then raps for silence and when he gets something like it he gives the crowd a fearful bawling out. Among other compliments, he says they are the cheapest bunch of tightwads he ever met in his life and he's been in the game twenty years. As the result of their five and ten cent bidding on articles of "priceless value," he goes on, he has decided to stop auctioning off the furnishings one by one. Instead, he will sell the house and its contents complete to the highest bidder, starting the thing at $50,000. One-third of the purchase price must be laid down at once, but the lucky buyer will be allowed ninety days on the balance.
"Well, come on, snap into it!" bawls the auctioneer. "Who bids fifty thousand?"
"I will!" I holler, without hardly realizing what I'm saying.
A hundred necks crane and twist to look at me and Nate views me with alarm.
"Fifty-one thousand!" comes a weak voice from the crowd.
"Fifty-five thousand!" I yell. I suppose I am crazy to do this, as the bridge jumper says, but why bother with thousand dollar bids and stay there all day?
My rival wilts.
"Anybody else?" shrieks the auctioneer. "Going at fifty-five thousand—an outrage, if they ever was one! Going at fifty-five thousand. Oh, what a crime! Do I hear fifty-six thousand? No? May Heaven forgive you,—I can't! Sold at fifty-five thousand dollars!"
And I am the owner of Rags Dempster's house.
What is the idea of a fellow like me sinking $55,000, in real estate you may say. The idea is that I have just about made up my mind that I am going to spend the rest of my days and nights, too, in Drew City and when I get wed and settled down, why, naturally enough I will want a house to live in. I couldn't duplicate the Dempster castle for three times what I paid for it and should something happen to my marriage plans I figure I can always sell it at a profit. Then again, there is something fascinating to me about owning the home of a guy which once sneeringly offered me a twelve-dollar a week job in his father's carpet factory and which has been stabbing me in the back for six years. So all in all, I'm highly delighted with my purchase, and, strangely enough, Judy seems highly delighted, too.
I bring Nate and Knockout Kelly over to my handsome new home as my guests, but we make arrangements to take all our meals at Mrs. Willcox's. There ain't no cook in the world can even grease a pan with her and a fighter's food is as important to him as his hands. I give Nate and Kayo a beautiful suit of rooms on the top floor with their own private bath and the etc and if you think they didn't like it, you're foolish. Kayo says my house would make Buckingham Palace look like a livery stable. He's especially hopped up about the piano down in the music room. My talented manager fingers a cruel ivory and Kayo throats a wicked song, so we was sure of ample entertainment on the cold rainy nights. Nate claims the piano is an upright, but Kayo says Nate's dizzy, because if the piano is upright what was it doing in the house of J. Rodney Dempster?
Both Judy and her mother come over and helped me rearrange this and that about the house at my urgent request. We made quite the few alterations, because strange as it may seem my ideas—on a lot of things—is a little bit different than old man Dempster's.
Judy got all excited over helping me fix up the house and as she's got elegant taste, why, in a couple of days it ain't just a house it's a beautiful home. It lacked just one thing to make it perfect—Judy! I followed her round from room to room, holding pictures and draperies for her to hang, moving chairs and tables where she tells me to put 'em and all that kind of thing, but believe me I ain't thinking about no interior decorating—I'm thinking about her. I think what a wonderful thing it would be if we were married and she was in my house to stay. She's up on a ladder fixing the velvet curtains between the dining room and the parlor and I just can't take my eyes off her. Why, if Judy Willcox was to stand beside Niagara Falls, nobody would give Niagara a tumble! I get a terrible kick just looking at this girl and that's a positive fact. Well, the more I look the more I wish and the more I wish the more I make up my mind I will ask her to wed me and be done with it! So I collect up all my courage, get up, cough a few times and begin.
"Judy," I says, in a kind of weak voice. "I would like to ask you a favor."
She turns around and smiles down at me, still holding the curtains.
"Anything, Gale," she says. "What is it?"
Standing there gazing into her clear blue eyes I decided to change the favor I intended to ask her, because I was always afraid that if I acted like I was dying of love she would give me the air. She often said herself that what she loathed was these mushy, lovelorn girls or boys. So like usual, I get double pneumonia of the feet. I had plenty nerve in the ring, but in front of this vision I was as faint-hearted as a rabbit. So I jerked myself back to normalcy immediately.
"Eh—will you help me hang those ringside pictures of me in the parlor?" I says, for want of something to ask now that I have let the marriage proposition go by the board.
"Why, Gale!" says Judy, dropping the curtains in amazement. "Surely you wouldn't dream of putting those fearful fighting pictures in that room! And it's not a parlor, Gale, it's the drawing room."
"There's one room will be useless to me, then," I says. "For I can't draw a straight line. However, I don't see nothing wrong in hanging those fight pictures there, Judy. Some of them is scenes from my greatest battles. I'm kind of proud of 'em and I want my visitors to see 'em."
"Put them in your den, then," says Judy. "You just hold these curtains for me, Gale, and I'll do the decorating." She starts to hang the curtains again, but suddenly she turns to me and says with a odd smile, "Perhaps I'm taking too much for granted—after all, it is your home."
"I sure wish it was yours, too, Judy!" I busts out.
You should of saw how red her face gets before she turns away. She says nothing and I suppose I missed the chance of a lifetime by not asking her then and there can she see her way clear to marry me. But when I think if she ever says "No!" I will become a maniac, so why take the chance just yet of hearing that word which will poison me? So while I hung fire, Judy gives the curtain a final pat and gets down from the ladder. She says she's got to hurry home and help her mother get dinner.
"Will you come back for a while after dinner and help me fix up that drawing room, Judy?" I says, in desperation.
"Of course, for a little while," she says, "if you want me to."
"If I want you to?" I says, advancing the bit closer. "Judy, I don't want you never to be away from me! I"
"Gale—I—really, I must run, I'm late now!" she butts in.
But why does she look away from me and blush again? I don't know. I know she beat it and after she left, why, that swell drawing room with all the statues and classy furniture and rugs a yard thick, was just a empty empty room to me!
The best part of my new residence to me was the library and that's where I put in most of my time. It had every kind of book in the world in it and I just read the print off 'em, no fooling. Books is one thing I can't get enough of and I go on regular reading jags, you might say, taking my fill of fiction, history, essays, poetry, biography, science, etc etc and even etc. Of course, there's a whole lot of these books which is miles over my head, being filled with thoughts and words which is beyond me. So I hired what is known as a tooter. This was a nice old man by the name of Prof. Simms which used to be one of Judy's teachers at Drew City Prep, but in spite of all his knowledge he had failed to learn how to keep from getting elderly and these cold-hearted birds at the prep school give him the air when he gets over the age limit. The poor old professor is a bit dazed by this treatment, as he ain't got a nickel and nowheres to turn for help, so I solved his problem and mine, too, by putting him on my payroll as my own private professor and having him come to my house to live.
About a month after I have settled down in my handsome mansion, I lost one of my guests through matrimony. That was no less than Knockout Kelly, which in spite of Nate's frantic objections hauls off and weds Mary Ballinger. Nate tried everything but poisoning the principals in a effort to stop these wedding bells from ringing out, because he knew it meant Kayo's permanent retirement as a box fighter. But Nate might as well of tried to stop the Atlantic Ocean from being wet. Mary and Kayo was wildly in love with each other and nothing else was of no importance to either of 'em. They are living in a swell little cottage which Kayo bought in Drew City and they got presents enough to more than furnish it. I was best man at the wedding and Judy was bridesmaid, and right then and there I made up my mind that the next marriage me and Judy graced with our presence we would be the parties of the first and second parts and not just innocent bystanders!
Well, as the time goes on my continual challenging of Hurricane Ryan for a battle over any distance he cares to name gets me the attention of nearly all the sport writers and they begin to ride him heavy. The heavyweight champion is whiling away his idle hours in vaudeville at heavy wages and he don't seem anxious to defend his title against me or nobody else. However, when the old applause at the end of his turn begins to fall off as the result of his stalling tactics, why, he begins to realize he has got to make some warlike move if he wants to keep his popularity. So he suddenly agrees to fight me, out of a clear sky. This gets me, Nate and the promoters all excited, till we hear the amount Ryan demands for his guarantee. Then we are fit to be tied. All Hurricane Ryan wants for risking his crown in a tussle with me is a scant $200,000 and he might as well of asked for $200,000,000 and be done with it! The promoters' interest in the bout flickers out like a candle, even the biggest gamblers amongst them turning it down cold. They figure that with the fifty or sixty thousand they would have to give me, the purse would break the man who put the fight on, as the vast difference in size between me and Ryan would kill all chance of drawing the record crowd which would be necessary to make it pay. In desperation I agreed to take a percentage of the gate receipts, but Ryan wouldn't and matters come to a standstill once again. Then when I have give up all hope of ever meeting Hurricane Ryan in a ring or even at a dance, I get my chance. It was Spence Brock's father which come to the rescue like he often has before.
A few days after the newspapers has printed the ridiculous terms on which Hurricane Ryan will accept my challenge, Spence picks me up downtown in his car and asks me to run out to his house, as his father wants to talk to me before he sails for a trip around the world on his yacht. On the ways out, Spence remarks that his father has made this excursion a half dozen times and he's looking forward to this one with about as much excitement as a aviator would look forward to a ride on a Ferris Wheel. He has got to get away from his business cares and the etc every now and again at the request of his doctor, but this voyage is just a habit with him and that's all. Spence says he bets his father would give a gigantic slice of his bankroll for a new thrill. Well—he did!
When we get to his house, Mr. Brock wants to know when me and Hurricane Ryan is going to cease this newspaper battling and get down to business in a ring, as that's one scuffle he wants to view before he takes his boat ride. I told him I would take pleasure in furnishing him with the date of the setto if I only knew it myself, but from the way the heavyweight champion has been stalling me along, I personally think the fight will take place the same day roller skating on the ocean becomes the national sport. I says about the only way I'll ever get Hurricane Ryan into a ring with me will be if the battle-ground is the top of Mt. Everest, where there will be nobody around to see me knock him dead.
Mr. Brock smiles and then looks thoughtful for a minute.
"You think Ryan would be willing to fight you if there were no spectators present?" he asks me after a minute, giving me a short, odd look.
"Oh, he might take a chance, sir," I admits. "But a bout without spectators would be a bout without gate receipts and a fellow who fights for nothing is not no fighter, sir—he's a maniac!"
This time Mr. Brock laughs outright, but there's a strange gleam in his eye and he still seems to be thinking seriously over the thing.
"But what if someone—some individual would finance such a fight, provided he could be the only spectator? Surely, Ryan wouldn't object to a single witness, would he?" he asks me.
"No, I don't think he'd squawk about a bare one fan seeing him knocked out, sir," I says, still in a kidding way, "but who in the name of Jersey City would spend more than a quarter of a million to see two fellows say it with boxing gloves?"
"I would!" he says, sitting forward in his chair and watching me close.
"You—you're joking, sir!" I gasp.
"You're wrong!" he says, very brisk. "I am not in the habit of joking about the expenditure of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars! For years I have been casting about for a substitute to take the place of this infernal ocean trip, which ceased to thrill me after the first one. I agree with my physicians that I need a tonic at about this time of the year, but we do not agree as to the proper ingredients of the tonic. By putting on this fight—an event I wouldn't miss seeing for worlds—I would save the time I'd waste on a round-the-world-trip, give you your chance to win the highest honors in your profession, and provide myself with a super-thrill! Imagine being the only witness to a battle between two champions—two of the greatest boxers in the ring today fighting to a decisive result for my sole pleasure! Why, boy, Nero himself would have rushed joyously from his gladiators and chariot races to witness a spectacle like that!"
And I wish you could of saw how excited he is.
"But, what—how will you manage to—" I begin.
"Young man," he interrupts, "busy yourself with getting into proper condition for the fight of your career and leave the details to me! I will personally pay Hurricane Ryan the two hundred thousand he demands, but you must speculate with me. You say you are certain you can defeat the heavyweight champion under any conditions. I read a statement by you the other day to the effect that you would almost be willing to fight him for nothing. Very well, if you win I will pay you fifty thousand dollars—if you lose, you will get nothing but the thrashing for your pains! Come now, what do you say?"
"What are the other conditions, sir?" I says, kind of in a trance.
"There are but two conditions," says Mr. Brock. "One, that there will be no spectators at this bout but myself—the other, that the fight is not to be limited to any stipulated number of rounds, It must be to a finish!"
Just a glance at his grim face is all I need to show me he's in dead earnest. I got up and shook his hand. I was in dead earnest, too.
"Mr. Brock, I accept your offer with pleasure," I says. "And I will take even more pleasure in knocking Hurricane Ryan for a Peruvian demi-tasse, for your further enjoyment!"
I tell Nate about things that night and we nearly come to fistycuffs ourselves, on the account of his inability to believe me. When I finally convince him I'm on the up and up, why, he laughs himself sick. He claims that Mr. Brock's layout is the buffalo's beard and a fool and his money is soon divorced. So I says if Mr. Brock is such a fool, where did he get all them millions of his. That slows Nate to a walk.
I immediately start to condition myself for Ryan and as this is to be a finish fight, believe me I get some good heavies to ready me. This melee may go one round or one hundred and I don't want to risk not being able to take it. Mr. Brock's agents present the heavyweight champ and his pilot with their proposition and at first they can't see it with a telescope. They know who Mr. Brock is and that he's good for the guarantee, all right, but it's just become a habit with them to refuse to fight me and that's all there is to it. Fnally, Ryan's manager agrees to Mr. Brock's terms—provided he can add one of his own. He insists that the result of the bout be kept a absolute secret, no matter which one of us wins!
For awhile, neither me, Nate, or Mr. Brock can figure out what the big idea is. Then we all agree that the crafty manager of the world's heavyweight champion has sold himself the thought that maybe I may turn out to be a tougher egg than they figure. I may give Ryan a lot of trouble—I may even take him. They are leaving nothing to accident. If I do win I can't claim the title, if everybody connected with the brawl is sworn to secrecy!
Well, I'm convinced I'm Ryan's master at marbles, pinochle or box fighting. I'm also convinced he'll never fight me publicly, so I agree to his weird demand. The whole thing appeals to my imagination and fighting blood. If I lose, I'm sure of a terrible pasting without being paid a nickel for taking it. But if I win, I'll get fifty thousand fish and the priceless satisfaction of having whipped the heavyweight champion of the world in a fight to a finish!
While me and Hurricane Ryan is training for our little debate with all kinds of precautions being took to keep everything under cover, Rags Dempster begins to show signs of having staged a remarkable comeback, as far as money matters is concerned. He breaks out with a sporty new car, leases a swell old Colonial mansion in the richest part of Drew City, and generally begins strutting his stuff till the whole burg begins to whisper and wonder. This goes on for about a month, during which the wild parties at his house makes Rags the talk of the town—and it ain't the kind of talk I would prefer for myself, no fooling. Rags is the local mystery, which is solved when the coppers swoop down on his house one night in the midst of the usual festivities and collar him for, what do you think? Sssh—bootlegging!
Spence Brock meets me the day Rags's case comes up and he tells me he's heard they are going to sock it to Rags plenty. Not only to make a example of him as a bootlegger, but because two-thirds of the town hates Rags from his derby to his overshoes. His father's failure and the closing down of the carpet mill is still open wounds and now that they got the son by the tail they are going to see at least justice done, if not more. Me and Spence is in Judge Tuckerman's court when the matter of Rags is reached. He has hired Lem Garfield, and Lem steps forward to plead for him. Lem got nowheres, for the first time since he's lawyered for a prisoner in the judge's court. When the judge hears the mere mention of the name "Dempster," why, he immediately remembers how he got stung by the carpet mill failure and he blew up like a powder mill. I doubt if he even heard the charge. He just gives Rags one terrible look over his cheaters and holds him for the grand jury.
So that was that.
Nothing much more happened till the night of the big fight, but plenty happened then! Mr. Brock had a regulation ring put up in the middle of his great big garage on the grounds of his estate and then he had the whole building fenced off by a ten-foot high boarding so's to keep out any peeping Toms. Had Drew City any idea of what was going to take place in Mr. Brock's garage that evening, you couldn't of kept the mob away with machine guns! There was a big cluster of high-powered electric lights over the ring itself, but only a few little dim ones around the rest of the place and with the whispered mutterings and hardly the sound of a footfall, instead of the usual roar of a fight-crazed mob, it sure was uncanny. It was more like going to be executed than going to box, and I almost felt like looking around the shadowy inside of the big garage for a scaffold. Hurricane Ryan, getting into his ring togs at the far end of the building, seems to be more interested in giving Mr. Brock the once over than he is in me. Well, no wonder. A guy which is willing to spend two hundred and fifty thousand bucks to see a fight all by himself is something to look at!
Besides Mr. Brock, which makes up the entire audience, there is just me and Hurricane Ryan, our handlers—three for each of us—a referee, and a timekeeper. Eleven people in all at a battle for the heavyweight championship of the world and ten of the low-voiced eleven is connected with the mill as principals or officials. There's one for the book, now ain't it?
The total absence of the howling, kidding crowd and the general noisy excitement I had always heard before is the first thing which gets on my nerves. There's something about that deathly quiet—at Mr. Brock's strict orders—which just ain't right, that's all! The first time I ever fought in a ring the noise of the mob sent me a million miles up in the air and made broad jumpers out of all my nerves—now, because there ain't any noise at all I feel almost the same way! I can see the atmosphere's getting on Hurricane Ryan's nerves, too, from the way he licks his lips and keeps his eyes mostly on the floor as he sits in his corner. Now and then he shoots a quick glance over at me, probably to see how I'm taking things and I bet in another minute we might almost of got up and sympathized with each other over this awful quiet!
Well, there ain't much time wasted in fiddling around, as there is no challengers to introduce from the ring and no flashlights to be took. Just before we shook hands I got a good look at Hurricane Ryan's waist line and the bulge of fat over his belt give me a lot of needed comfort. Hurricane looks like his idea of readying himself for this battle was to get himself a shave and a haircut. He figured me just another set-up, only that and nothing more.
Mr. Brock settles back in his ringside seat—the only seat there—with a fat cigar between his lips and a smile of perfect satisfaction on his face. He's set to see a battle that may break all records in the number of rounds fought and produce a new world's champion. It went just six rounds and as for producing a new world's champion, well
From the first punch to the last, this fight was one which should go down in history with the Battle of the Marne, Gettysburg, Bunker Hill and Waterloo. Both me and Hurricane Ryan has one idea—to win with a single blow if possible. Therefore, every punch was meant for a haymaker. So sensational was the milling that it drove Mr. Brock to within two inches of insanity and it was often necessary between rounds for the handlers to attend to him as well as me and Ryan—holding the old ammonia under his nose and waving towels over him till he come back to life. At other times, he'd sit there licking his lips like one of them old time Roman emperors—tickled silly that he's seeing one of the goriest fights since Cain stopped Abel and that his jack has enabled him to put the shambles on for his enjoyment alone! Unfortunately, I didn't have time to pay more attention to him. I was busy—with Hurricane Ryan.
At the opening bell, Ryan rushed me to the ropes and begin roughing it, using his terrible weight advantage to bull me around the ring while shooting in short lefts and rights at close quarters. Well, it's a cinch that my place is away from this kind of treatment and I get away by popping him with two stiff right uppercuts which his face told me shook him up. Then I turn my attentions to that roll of fat at his waistline, upon instructions from Nate, which he was warned not to repeat by the conscientious referee. I swung a left to the wind and followed that with a hard right to the same place without a return. A left chop to the ear started the Burgundy flowing freely and Ryan backs away looking worried. So far, I am making a show of this big stiff and this gets me a trifle too ambitious. I blocked a light left and tore in with a well meant right hook to the heart. The punch fell short and Ryan put Mr. Brock in a fainting condition by flooring me with a nasty left to the jaw. However, the blow was only a glancing one and after taking a count of seven I was up again, full of fight. Ryan missed a left uppercut and paid for his poor timing when I reached his sore ear with a overhand right. He grabbed me around the waist and we are clinched in mid-ring at the bell. Ryan's round, by the margin of that lucky knockdown.
Round two was a trifle slower, for the reasons that both me and Ryan had about made up our minds that a one-punch knockout would have to wait till we had felt each other out more. Besides, we're both tired from the terrific pace in the first round. The heavyweight champ used a right swing almost entirely, while I relied on what Nate told me during the rest—a straight left and a right hook, mostly to the body, then back pedal and try to tire out Ryan by making him chase me. Ryan slipped and fell just before the gong, but was up in a instant. I didn't cop him, which I could when he was off balance, because that ain't the way I fight. Hurricane acknowledged this by grinning and touching gloves with me and that's what we was doing at the bell. This frame was even all around.
Ryan surprised me with a change of pace in the third round and only missed winning the fight then and there by a miracle. I was the miracle. He rushed me around the ring swinging both hands viciously and a terrific right to the head sent me spinning along the ropes, goofy and entering Queer Street. I got one glance at Nate's pale face and Mr. Brock jumping up and down and then I hit the canvas on my haunches from a short left hook to the button. I managed to stumble up in time to beat the count, only to run into a torrid left to the mouth that painted me a deep red and dropped me to my knees. Once more I arose before the fatal ten and this time I floundered into a life-saving clinch by pure dumb luck. I don't know what it's all about and I hung on till the referee dragged me away bodily. But that clinch had made a new man of me. Hurricane Ryan was tired and puffing like a porpoise from his own exertions during that flurry, while I had got my second wind and my brain was clearing of the cobwebs put there by them two knockdowns. I stepped in close and dug both gloves into that pudgy, heaving stomach of his and you could hear him grunt in Betelgeuse. Then I swung a long overhand right to his face that covered both of us with Hurricane's gore. He tried a feeble straight left which I had no treuble ducking. He pawed at me blindly and I shot a straight right to his eye, cutting it to the bone. A wicked smash to the neck sent Ryan staggering around like a drunken man and made Mr. Brock act like one. The groggy heavyweight champ tried to dive into a clinch, but I had other plans for him. I set myself, took careful aim and threw my right at his chin. Down he goes like a poled ox for the first time in the fight, with a crash that sent up dust from the canvas. He barely got to his feet at nine and with a knockout win staring me in the face I throwed gloves at him till he must of thought it was raining leather!
Then came the accident which almost cost me the fight for the second time in that boisterous third round. Hurricane Ryan is against the ropes in his own corner, weaving back and forth like a hula dancer. I tossed a right at his jaw with everything I got behind it. As the punch starts, his head sways to one side and my glove swishes past and cracked against a ring post. I thought I had broke my hand in two, I did for a fact. The gong rings just then and when I run to my corner, Nate finds I have busted my right thumb, making my best hand practically useless!
Well, although I managed to keep Ryan from finding out the shape my right is in, I took one proper pasting in the fourth and fifth rounds. With only one hand I could hit hard with, and that one which I had never before depended on as heavy artillery, I'm pretty badly handicapped. Only Ryan's poor condition and the cuffing I had handed him in the third frame saved me. He seems to get stronger towards the end of the fourth, but I kept him cautious by making a bluff of swinging my right every time he gets too ambitious. He didn't like that right of mine and he took no pains to hide it. I also bluffed him now and then with a shift—standing first with my left and then with my right hand extended. A left uppercut that hit me in the Adam's apple in the middle of the fifth like to choke me to death and near the bell I went down for a count of eight from two terrible smashes to the body. I tincanned around the ring from then on to the bell, which was a welcome chime to me. So far, Ryan had the first, fourth and fifth rounds by a good margin, with the second even and only the third in my favor. Yet I'm still the freshest of the two, having youth and perfect condition on my side.
Nate and I made up our minds that I was to stake everything on a flurry at the beginning of the sixth frame, leading with my right and standing the pain, in order to get a opening for a left to the jaw. The plan was to work heavy on Hurricane's scant hoard of wind and it worked to perfection. Right off the bat, Ryan smacked me with a right to the head. He looked surprised when I didn't fall and even more surprised when I sunk my left to the wrist in his body. I then feinted with my right and again shot my left to his mid-section and Hurricane dropped to one knee. Ryan had a great deal of trouble this time getting to his feet and it was plain to even his handlers that he was through when he did struggle upright. Mr. Brock is jumping around like a madman, punching away at a imaginery fighter and too hoarse to yell. I looked Ryan over calmly, walked up to him and brought down his guard with a left to his heart. He sagged back on his heels, dropping his gloves slowly and I hooked the same left to the jaw. Ryan fell on his face, twitched and laid still. He was out four minutes and I have knocked the world's heavyweight champion cold!
Well, the minute the referee finished counting Ryan out, what does Mr. Brock do but haul off and faint dead away from excitement! Nate and Kayo Kelly leaps out of the ring and they had their work cut out for them bringing him around. No more than he opens his eyes when there's a commotion in the attic over the garage, and, here comes the laugh—Spence, Judge Tuckerman and Lem Garfield tumble headlong down into the ring! They been up there all the time and seen it all. Honest, I thought Mr. Brock would die of apoplexy. It slowly dawns on him that his scheme to be the only witness to his personally conducted fight has flopped and for the next few minutes he ain't fit to be at large! He raves and he rants and he stamps around, red in the face and shaking his firsts at his unwelcome guests. Judge Tuckerman and Lem Garfield looks longingly at the door, while Spence tries to quiet his father down with explanations of how he smuggled them in because they was crazy to see me win. Spence had heard me and his father planning the thing and he just couldn't keep his mouth shut. At last, Mr. Brock happens to look around to where they are still working over Hurricane Ryan and he slowly cools off while a broad smile makes its appearance on his face. He slaps me on the back and grabs at my bloody gloves.
"By Gad, boy, you did it!" he hollers. "You whipped the world's heavyweight champion in as great a battle as I've seen in twenty-five years! I knew you'd win. I don't pick losers!"
That's about all, except when we get outside the garage, sneaking our way like burglars through the night to our cars, who do we bump into but Sam Howe, editor of the Drew City "Sentinel." Sam's got a flashlight, snooping around and when he sees us he throws it full in our faces with a cackle of joy.
"By Cæsar!" says Sam. "I knew there was suthin' big goin' on here! I knew that there fence wasn't built around the garage for nuthin'. Been a big fight, hey? Well, let's have the details for the 'Sentinel'!"
Right away Hurricane Ryan gets nervous and pulls me back of a tree.
"Remember our contract!" he whispers hoarsely in my ear. "We swore nobody would tell nobody who win the fight. You can't put this scrap in the papers!"
I remembered that part of it, all right, to my sorrow. But—a oath's a oath. I stepped up to Sam and motioned Hurricane to keep out of the range of his flashlight.
"Don't get all steamed up over nothing, Sam," I says, forcing a grin. "I just been working out for my next fight, that's all."
Sam squints at Hurricane.
"Workin' out with the heavyweight champeen?" snorts Sam. "Think I'm a fule? It's been a humdinger of a fight, I kin see by your faces. Lookit his nose!"
Then I get a real idea—I do, now and then.
"Don't make me laugh!" I snort. "That ain't the heavyweight champ no more than I'm Columbus. Look again and see for yourself!"
Hurricane Ryan's features is puffed and swelled till I bet he'd of had to be introduced to his own mother. I figure poor Sam has never seen nothing but a newspaper picture of him anyways. Like I hoped, Sam looks doubtful. He's made too many mistakes in the Drew City "Sentinel" to want to make another on purpose. Nobody likes to be laughed at, but professional comedians.
"You'll all swear that's not the heavyweight champeen of the world?" he says finally, pointing to Hurricane Ryan.
Well, that ain't a hard matter to do. I have just knocked Ryan out, so even if I ain't in a position to tell the world about it, I'm morally heavyweight champion myself, ain't I? Sure!
I nudge the others and we all raise our hands and solemnly swear. Hurricane Ryan looks at me, sees what's in my mind and with a grim smile he raises his right hand too!
A good loser at that, now wasn't he?