Fighting Blood (Witwer)/Round 4

by Harry Charles Witwer

Round Four

Two Stones With One Bird

Maybe you think a fellow which will go to work and pay twenty-five bucks for a box of writing paper for himself is cuckoo, and maybe he is. But, honest, I wish you could of curled a eye over this stationery. It was the eel's ankle, no fooling! Take this paper itself—lobster red—and across the top in purple letters which you could press down with your fingers it said this:

Six-Second Smith, nee Gale Galen
Leading Contender for World's Middleweight Title

The Idol of Promoters and Fight Fans

Why?	A Few Victims
He's always in shape.	Red Johns, K. O. 1 Rd.
He fights clean.	Fred Nixon, K. O. 1 Rd.
He hits hard and often.	Young Fisher, Won 3 Rds.
He's always trying.	Kid George, K. O. 1 Rd.
He doesn't want all the money.	Shifty McTague, Won 1 Rd.
He will box any boy at 158 lbs.	Battling Lee, K. O. 8 Rds.

His Manager, Nate Shapiro.
His Motto: "Dieu et Mon Droit!"

Drew City, N. J., 19 .

Besides this, in the upper right-hand corner there was a picture of me in my evening clothes—ring togs—and if that ain't a nifty letter head, then Dempsey's a traffic cop! I thought that letter head all out myself and Nate said it was the greatest business getter he ever seen since he'd been handling box fighters and that's been since a right hook was a punch. Why, Nate never sent out a letter to a fight club on this paper that it didn't pull some kind of a answer, even if the matchmaker only wished to know where could he get the music for it.

What I particularly idolized about this letter head was my motto, "Dieu et mon droit!" That means "God and my Right!" and it was the slogan of a two-handed fighter named Richard I, which besides having that last name with only one letter in it, once held down the exacting job of King of England. Well, I never was King of England, but still and all I decided that "Dieu et mon droit!" would make a swell battle cry for me and a wonderful motto to live up to. Mrs. Willcox had taught me a lot about the Bible and I said my prayers every night and went to church with her and Judy every Sunday and I ain't ashamed to admit it neither. So that's why I was strong for the first part of that motto. As for the last part, ". . . and my Right!", well, that was made to order for me. I don't know how much of a socker Richard I was with his right, but I know that my right made me a world's champion and you can't laugh that off!

Well, after winning my first fight with a punch I stopped six other good boys in from one to eight rounds each and I was no more ashamed of that record than Napoleon was of his business. But I'm still determined that the minute I get the price of a education the prize ring's loss will be the world's gain! I had nothing against box fighting; as far as that part of it goes, I got quite the kick out of it. But how many scrappers is making a living at their trade at forty, for the example. How many which is out of the game is living on Well Fixed Avenue?

While you're puzzling over that brain teaser, I'll get back to Judy, and who wouldn't? Judy was now my chief second in this finish fight I begin with Battling Ignorance, and during her vacation that summer from Drew City Prep, she taught me this and that. We had reading and writing, arithmetic and spelling, history and geography, grammer and hot chocolate when school's over. Ain't we got fun! If I had learned what is the difference between a verb and a pronoun as fast as I learned to fall into love with this sweet little eye-widener, why, I could of went up to Yale and made a monkey out of the entire college!

Well, after four fights as a welterweight, me and Nate makes the sad discovery that I can't make the poundage in that division no more because I'm growing like a baby elephant. The best I can get down to at that time is 158 ringside and it takes a two days' drying out to do that. So I was then a full-fledged middleweight, not that this entitled me to carry a sword and rate a salute or anything like that. My four scuffles as a welter nets me around five hundred bucks after Nate takes out his half and I square for the jack he advanced me to live on before I have my first fight. In them four battles I am trading wallops less than a half hour altogether—the first one only goes sixteen seconds—and my gross receipts is just $1,200. When Nate picks me from behind Ajariah Stubbs's soda fountain, I have to work twelve hours a day for two years to click off twelve hundred smackers! Honest, I felt like the laborer which win fifty dollars the first time he ever bet on a horse race in his life and says in astonishment: "How long has this been going on?"

One of the first things I done when the money begin to roll in like this was to get myself two swell suits of clothes, a complete and classy outfit of gents furnishings and a hundred-buck diamond ring. The rest opens a savings account and I put on no more dog from then until I had a real bankroll. But this first plunge I simply had to take and that's a fact. All my life I had wanted to have two suits of clothes—one for every day and one for when I'm stepping out. Then that diamond—it was a pip, too—well, that was simply another case of must have! It gives a fellow a air of—eh—but you get me, don't you?

On my nineteenth birthday Nate signs me up with a sapolio called Shifty McTague for my first start as a middleweight. Ten rounds at Irontown, Pa., for a guarantee of $600 if I stay the limit. If on the contrary, I get paid at the rate of $50 a round, and no tips. McTague, a big favorite in Irontown, is to get a thousand bucks flat even should I smack him for a mock turtle, which I don't mind telling you is what I intended to do, no matter what his own plans is for remaining erect. This bout was the main event of a card put on for the hired help by the heavy bosses of the Irontown Locomotive Works, to celebrate the fiftieth birthday of the choo-choo factory. The merry ironworkers had a two-day holiday of track and field sports, winding up with the boxing show, while the bosses done their setting-up exercises at a banquet table.

We signed the articles in Lefty Mullen's gym in New York. Both me and Shifty McTague agree to make 158 at two o'clock the day of the quarrel.

"I don't seem to of heard much about this boy of yours," says the matchmaker to Nate, looking at me kind of suspicious. "Is he tough?"

"Is he tough?" grunts Nate. "This McTague boloney will think he's tough when 'at bell rings, don't think he won't. Why, this kid had on a pair of boxin' gloves the first day he's alive!"

"I hope he's tough," says the matchmaker gloomily. "Because should he not be tough, he'll have on a pair of boxin' gloves the last day he's alive too!"

"Blah!" sneers Nate. "Be yourself! Who did this McTague ever kill?"

"I ain't talkin' about McTague," says the matchmaker. "I'm busy thinkin' about them ironworkers, which will expect the Battle of Gettysburg once them two boys come out of their corners. If your battler can't take it, they'll cook him sure. That goes for McTague too. I don't care how tough your boy thinks he is, them ironworkers is Tough itself! If I was the two kids which is goin' up there to do their stuff, I'd rather git my nose broke by a boxin' glove than git my skull broke by a crowbar. Yes, sir, them kids better be a couple of two-fisted maniacs, that's all I got to say!"

He said too much as it was, hey?

On the way back home I can't think of nothing at all but them ironworkers, and I must say that the idea of battling a locomotive works single-handed don't appeal to me at all. I had already fought before the kind of sportsmen which thinks every fight where both boys ain't cut and slashed to ribbons is a frame-up between a couple of room mates and I know what me and this Shifty McTague will be up against, if we don't half kill each other. Nate says the matchmaker was just trying to give me a pushing around, and to forget all about it, because this scrap will be the same as any other.

But it wasn't!

When we get back to Drew City I go right up to my room. That's something I wish you could of saw, no fooling! I had it fixed up swell, and, as Nate said, there was about everything in it but a race track and a swimming pool. On the floor was one of the rugs they turn out in Drew City, N. J., and ship to the Indians to sell out West, and I had so many pictures on the walls you couldn't see the paper. Besides fighting photos of me in a dozen different menacing poses, there was pictures of Dempsey, Leonard, Lynch, Carpentier, the gentleman socker, and nearly all the other champs and near champs. I cut them all out of The Police Gazette and they's only one other place I rather of had my own picture than in The Police Gazette and that's in Judy's locket!

Mrs. Willcox hollered about my art gallery at first on the account she says pinning them pictures on the wall spoils the paper. So then I take out the pins and went to work and paste all the pictures on the wall. Well, the dear old lady just throws up her hands, but says nothing, because I was the star boarder and star boarders has got to be gave certain liberties.

Well, although this was my nineteenth birthday, I don't feel so good, for a fact. In the first place, there's them ironworkers which expects a race riot when me and Shifty McTague mingles; in the second place, it's one of them dark, foggy, rainy days which would give Mr. Happy himself the blues; and, in the third place, nobody ain't even wished me a merry birthday—not so much as a post card have I got so far!

For the want of something to do I get out a pile of my pictures and a pen and ink and commence writing "Yours Truly, Six-Second Smith" on 'em, so's I'll have a lot ready when I'm champion and the public commences to clamor for my autograph photo. But my mind ain't on the thing and after a while I give it up. The steady rattle of rain on the windows and the steady rattle of thoughts on my brain gets me plenty nervous, so I begin shadow boxing, slamming my right over on the air and making out I'm clouting this Shifty McTague. Every now and then I stop in front of the mirror and fall into my famous fighting crouch which I copied from Dempsey. I look at his face in the picture on the wall and I notice he's got a fierce scowl on him, so I scowl too. Standing there with my head lowered, my left hand out, my noted right pulled back for the sleep producer and a horrible frown on my face, I get kind of fascinated by what a ringer I am for Dempsey right then!

Then I hear a giggle.

I had left the door open for Nate, but Nate ain't no giggler. Dropping my hands, I swing around like a flash and—there's Judy, looking at me and laughing her head off. She's just come in from the storm and her raincoat is dripping water, which even glistens on her breath-taking face. The room is dark and gloomy but Judy standing there in the doorway lights it up like a cathedral.

Every time I look at this girl a epidemic of wishing hit me which would made it look like Aladdin's requests was modest! Well, when I realize that Judy's been standing there for some time and has seen me posing in front of the mirror and taking wallops at the air, why, I feel like a sap. I can tell my face is getting so red it must of looked like somebody hit me with a throwing tomato.

"Many happy returns of the day!" smiles Judy and whisks a bundle from behind her back. Without another word she hands it to me and blows.

I tear the paper off this bundle and my fingers seems to be nothing but thumbs. The idea that Judy has thought of me at all on my birthday has got me so excited that if they's nothing in this package but a cast-iron hair brush I'll be highly satisfied. But it's something all soft and padded and silk, till at first I think she has made a mistake and I'm in the ladies' wear department. Then I stand up and shake it out and the next minute I let forth a whinney of joy. It's a bathrobe for me to wear into the ring, and Judy couldn't of got me nothing better if she had sit up all night to dope it out!

And, oh, what a knockout this bathrobe was! On the breast pocket she has went to work and sewed "G. G." in red silk. The bathrobe itself is blue, and then I remember only the other day Judy asks me what's my favorite color, and I look at her and she's dressed in blue from head to foot, so you know what color I says is my pet. Well, first I close the door tight and then I take hold of that monogram which Judy's little fingers has sewed on and I kiss it—go ahead and laugh your head off, you never seen Judy! Then I try it on over my clothes, and if I ain't the turkey's elbow when I'm inside this bathrobe, then they's only two Frenchmen in Paris the year round!

I'm just going downstairs to find Judy and ply her with thanks, when Knockout Kelly comes into the room. I showed him the present I got from Judy. He admires it plenty and says if he was me he wouldn't pay no attention to the razzing I'll get the first time I walk down the aisle to the ring in a fight club with a baby blue silk bathrobe on. While I'm thinking this one over, Kayo tells me to wait a minute and goes to his room. He comes back with a peach of a white sweater and throws it on my bed. "There's one more birthday present, kid," he grins. "Of course, alongside of that—eh—kimono Miss Willcox give you, why my present don't mean nothin'. But maybe tomorrow I'll give you somethin' else."

He did that thing. The very next morning when me and Kayo is sparring, he give me a split lip.

Well, I find Judy in the parlor wielding a cruel knitting needle, and I go over and sit down beside her. "Judy," I says, "that bathrobe is immense and I don't know how to thank you!"

"Don't try," smiles Judy. "Does it fit you?"

"Like the skin on a grape!" I says. "What would you like for Christmas?"

Judy laughs and drops the knitting; which tickles me, as watching them flying needles gets me nervous as a cat. "What would I like for Christmas?" she says. "Why, this is July!"

"Well, what's the nearest holiday, then?" I says.

Judy picks up this knitting again, passing up my inquiry of even date. "How are you coming along with your reading, Gale?" she asks.

"Great!" I says. "I sit up all hours last night reading the most thrilling book ever wrote. All about Indians, Cannibals, sharks, Bowie knives, beheadings, gem cutting——"

"Gale!" Judy interrupts, the bit reproachful. "That sort of thing isn't going to help you. You've been reading a dime novel!"

"Well," I says, "you recommended it to me yourself."

"I recommended nothing like that? What's the name of that book?"

"Encyclopedia," I says. "What are you laughing at? I know you think that name is phoney, and I made it up myself, but that's where you're wrong, Judy. I'll go right upstairs and get that book now and——"

"Oh, I believe you," says Judy. "But I just put an encyclopedia on your list for a reference book. What did you look up in it?"

"I looked up everything," I says, "Believe me, Judy, I didn't skip nothing! I started at the A's and I wind up at the Z's and now I'm on my second journey around the circuit and enjoying every inch of the trip."

"You funny boy!" says Judy, trying out another giggle.

"Much obliged!" I says, slightly steamed. "Judy, I know you think I'm cuckoo to sit up half the night reading a encyclopedia. I suppose to most people the average encyclopedia is about as exciting as a rainy Sunday night down on the farm. Well, it's different here. Why, Judy, a fellow like me which is just dying to know what it's all about, can have the time of his life with a good thick encyclopedia. This here ain't just a book to me, it's a pal, what I mean! It's wised me up to things which I never heard tell of before, or if I did hear of 'em, they didn't mean nothing. It's——"

"I hope you'll remember what you're reading, Gale," butts in Judy. "And store all that away in your mind to be called forth when needed. Don't skip what you don't understand—just mark those places and I'll go over them with you later. That," you know, "she adds with a smile which goals me as usual—"that is what you're paying me for."

Well, here and there they may be some professors which knows more than Judy, but I'll tell the slant-eyed world I had the best-looking teacher in captivity, and that's a fact!

"I notice you don't go to the movies with Mr. Knockout Kelly and Mr. Shapiro any more at night," remarks Judy, after a minute.

"Judy," I says, "them babies don't want to get nowheres—I do! Let them play the movies, I'll stay home with my encyclopedia. Think of being able to get the low-down on stuff like Feudalism, The Spanish Inquisitives, Anaesthasia, Capital Punishment and Sponge Fishing, all in the same night! Can the movies tie that?"

But Judy's laughing again and that gets my animal.

"Listen," I says. "Maybe you think a leather pusher which spends his nights off studying this kind of stuff is a sap, because they will hardly ever be a time in the middle of a fight when the other scrapper will stop socking to ask: "What does feudalism mean, kid?" or anything like that. Well, I don't think I'm no sap for trying to make something out of myself, Judy. If I can't go to no university, I can at least get a homemade education and I can pick up a couple of pennants and a college yell anywheres!"

With that I get up and start out of the room, but Judy jumps up too, dropping the knitting on the floor and laying her hand on my arm.

"Indeed, I'm not laughing at your studying, Gale," she says seriously, making me turn around so's I'm facing her. "I—you have such a—a—funny way of putting things, I can't help laughing at some of the things you say. I—you are so different from any of the boys that—well, I'm not sure that isn't one of the reasons I like you. I have a deep and sincere admiration for your determination to make something out of yourself, as you put it, and I know, I'm positive you will! You won't be able to help yourself, Gale, you're fated to succeed—I—just feel it. Why, look what you've accomplished since you first came to Drew City. You won't be a prize fighter long, and then——"

"Listen, Judy," I butt in—I got a one-track mind. "Just now when you started to talk you said you liked me. Does that go?"

Her face gets a deep scarlet, and, gee, but it's becoming! Now it's her turn to look the other way and I'm just slowly turning her around and who knows what might of happened, when Nate pushes aside the portieres and walks into the room. Nate's own mother don't like him no more than I do, but right then I could of smacked him for a Russian picalilli plate and had a clear conscience! Judy, of course, ducked immediately.

"Did I bust up anything?" grins Nate.

"Why don't you blow your horn?" I growls. "No, you didn't bust up nothing, because there's nothing to bust up, but if——"

"But if I had put off coming in here till to-morrow I wouldn't of got nobody sore!" Nate cuts me off, still grinning. He takes a little box out of his pocket and hands it to me. "Merry Birthday!" he says, slapping me on the back. "'At's the best I could get you. They's twenty-seven jewels in 'at watch and no two alike. It set me back seventy iron men. You lose it or bust it and I'll make you hard to catch! I made it the point not to get your initials put on it, because you may git up against it some day and want to hock it and you can git more sugar on it if it ain't initialed."

"You think of everything, don't you?" I says.

But I only get sarcastic because I don't want Nate to see my real feelings. Imagine this ten-minute egg giving me a present! And this watch Nate give me is plenty timepiece, too, don't think it wasn't. All it needed was Judy's picture in the back of the case and I get that the same night. While I'm thanking Nate over and over again, he pulls The Police Gazette out of his pocket, and, folding back a page, hands it to me.

"Here's a laugh!" he says, "Lamp this bozo—it says he'll be the next middleweight champ!"

Well, I look at the page Nate points to and—say, I feel almost like I felt the first time I ever knocked anybody cold. There's a picture of me in ring togs in The Police Gazette, where Dempsey and Leonard and all them guys gets their pictures printed!

But that ain't all. Spence Brock gives me a scarf pin, Shiney Jepp, the dinge rubber, hands me a new pair of purple silk trunks with a red monogram, and to top off the day, Mrs. Willcox puts on a big birthday dinner with chicken, lobster salad, mince pie, etc., and she bakes a cake for me with nineteen candles on it. Some birthday!

The next day is Sunday and Nate lets me off from the grind at our camp because, for one thing, my sparring partners needs the rest, and for another thing, Nate don't want me trained too fine for this Shifty McTague. Kayo Kelly, getting romantic, hires a car and takes Mary Ballinger, the stenog at the Commercial House, for a trip to the Trenton Fair. Spence Brock calls around for me in his racer and me and him takes a long ride in the country. When Spence got through Drew City Prep that year, why he went to Princeton to get colleged and when he come out it didn't make no difference if all he learned was to yell, because his old man has $4.75 for every Spaniard in Madrid. Pretty soft, hey? Well, I didn't envy Spence and you can believe that or not, just as you like. I don't know as I'd wanted to of been born rich, because then I'd have nothing to shoot at, what I mean. Being born poor, I've had to hustle all my life and that's kind of give me the hustling habit. Anyway, me and Spence went everywheres together except places where grammer, family, and bank roll is all you got to have, but you must have that!

Well, this day we're clicking off the miles on the state road with me driving, because I sure liked to operate this speed demon of Spence's and the talk swings around to "Rags" Dempster. But to show you what a cheap squawker this Rags is, Spence tells me he has just welshed on a bet with him. It seems that Spence, which thinks I can take Dempsey, bet Rags two hundred and fifty bucks I would win my last scrap by a knockout. Well, that melee was with Kid George at Philly, and after I knock the Kid down four times in the first round, why, the referee stops the fight to save Kid George from further punishment. Personally, I'm glad he does stop it, as I don't want to hit this game boy no more, but Rags won't pay Spence off because he claims it wasn't a clean knockout. Can you imagine a cheater like that? Everybody in the world knows that a fight stopped that way counts the same as a knockout, but this Rags insists that the bet go over to my next fight, which is the one with Shifty McTague, thereby giving himself two chances to win the bet.

Well, when I see how Rags is trying to gyp Spence out of his two hundred and a half I get red-headed and I tell Spence I will flatten Shifty McTague if I have to hit him with the bucket!

"Don't worry, Gale," laughs Spence, "you won't have to do that, you hit too hard with your hands! I'll bet a year or so from now I'll be going around saying: 'Six-Second Smith, the world's champion middleweight? Oh, yes, I know him well. We used to be chums in——'"

"Do you think you'll be saying we used to be chums, Spence?" I cut in, "I mean, is the fact that I'm a prize fighter going to wind you and me up?"

Spence is half turned away and beginning to laugh, but he breaks off and swings around to me in a flash.

"Is that the way I strike you, Gale?" he asks quietly.

Well, after a look into his fine brown eyes I'm ashamed of myself, no fooling!

"No, Spence," I says. "That ain't the way you strike me—and I'm sorry I made that crack!"

Spence shows me all his nice white teeth again.

"Gale," he goes on, kind of impulsive, "I wish you'd let me bring you up to the house some time to meet dad. Now, wait—you'd like him and he'd like you! He's a regular fellow, is dad, and he'd be pleased that we're friends. With one or two exceptions, he loathes the rest of the fellows in our crowd, says they're a lot of spineless young jellyfish—that's the mildest term he uses for them! He's a boxing enthusiast, too—goes to all the championship fights, to mother's supreme disgust. He's tried to sneak me along with him a couple of times, but mother's put her foot down and that—er—ends it. There was a young riot over me going to see you fight that Red Johns and——"

"They'd be two young riots if you ever brought me up to your house, Spence," I grins. "'Father, meet my friend Six-Second Smith, the prize fighter.' Woof!"

Spence laughs, but immediately turns serious again. "You're simply scared because dad has a lot of money," he says. "And I suppose 'Spencer-Brock' as a surname sounds terrifying. Well, Gale, as a matter of fact, our name is actually just Brock. Spencer is mother's family name, and she and my sisters are responsible for the hyphenated arrangement. Dad is really plain John T. Brock, and he made his money originally in—in the manufacturing business. There! No 'born to the purple' or any of that nonsense about that, is there? My mother and sisters would flay me alive if they knew I told anyone this, but I want to set you right on dad. I've told him lots about you, Gale, how you're educating yourself and how you've struggled for a foothold in life. The way you've made your own way since you've been a child interests him immensely. Those things always do. Dad loves a fighter and——"

"He might love a fighter, Spence," I butt in. "But a prize fighter would be different! Even if he is a fight fan, he's also a rich millionaire and he'd no more want me up at his home than he'd want a horse in his parlor if he was a nut on racing. No, Spence, I don't want to meet your father yet. Let's wait till I get out of the ring and mean something—wait till you can take me up to the house without making any excuses for me, get me? If you brought me up there now, the chances is your mother and sisters would yell murder and forbid you to go with me any more. And don't say nothing to your father about me being a scrapper, because the minute he hears that he'll bust up our friendship as sure as they's a touch of tomato in catsup!"

So we drop that subject, but three weeks later Spence's father himself brings it up with a crash!

The following day, Rags Dempster shows up at the training camp with a bunch of his dumbell friends. If I had saw them first they never would of set foot over the threshold, but Nate's got their Jack and they're inside before I know it. The first I'm aware that I'm performing for the benefit of my only known enemy is when Tommy O'Ryan, a sparring partner, stabs me on the nose with a straight left. This starts a slight flow of claret—nothing to be alarmed about and ald in the day's work at a training camp. So I just wipe my nose with my glove and continue on, not even flooring Tommy for the benefit of the audience, as some guys would of did then and there. I never did believe in beating up a sparring partner which is merely doing what you hire him for when he clouts you. But Rags sees this blood on my face and he howls with joy. So does his friends. The mere sound of Rags Dempster's voice throws me off balance, and Mr. Thomas O'Ryan, a mean hitter, socks me on the sore beak again, this time to my great annoyance, I must say. The red ink starts afresh and so does Rags. He hollers to Tommy to flatten me and he'll give him a hundred bucks, pulling out a bill and waving it around.

Tommy grins, knowing I'm pulling my own punches, and, not even getting action for his money, Rags begins making cracks about me which would make my father turn over in his grave if he thought I was taking 'em. Stepping away from Tommy, I make one lunge at Rags, missing him by a bare inch through being over anxious and excited. The way his friends go through that door would of made me laugh if I hadn't been so crazy mad. Rags's face is the color of cream as he starts on the lam for the great outdoors with me after him, all business. Two-Punch Jackson runs over and grabs Rags just as he's going through the exit, when Nate comes to life. He bawls Jackson to let Rags go and then he swings around on me.

"Where d'ye get 'at stuff?" he bellers. "You got light bandages on—suppose you sock 'at jobbie on the head and break a bone in your hand? 'At would lay you up for a couple of months, wouldn't it? You do your battlin' in the ring, where you git paid for your trouble! This fightin' for nothing is out, git me: Let the stevedores do 'at stuff. Next time somebody calls you names, make out you don't know 'em!"

Well, as the time for this scuffle with Shifty McTague draws near, Nate cuts my workouts down to a few rounds light sparring and a two-mile run with a rubdown every day. This gives me quite a little time to myself, and I use it in trying to get a line on what I'm good at, if anything, apart from box fighting. I'm still cuckoo over this encyclopedia and I pester Nate and Kayo Kelly to read it till they're fit to be tied! Nate says he'll start in on the encyclopedia the minute he gets through reading the telephone book. He can't stop now, he says, because he's right in the middle of a chapter called "Pay Stations," and it's as exciting as being chased by a grizzly. Kayo says any doctor will tell you that reading is bad for the eyes, adding that he bets I'm selling encyclopedias as a side line.

That crack of Kayo's gives me a large idea. Why not sell encyclopedias as a side line? I got to try my luck at something, unless I want to wind up as a pork-and-bean pug, which I didn't, by no means! The more I think about it, the more I get hopped up on the idea. I figure that once the people of Drew City finds out what a swell novel a encyclopedia is, why, they'll sell like ice water would sell on the Sara Desert. Judy gets all excited too when I put the matter up to her, and Spence slaps me on the back and says he'll take at least one set without looking!

That decides me. I get a set of encyclopedias for samples from New York, and, woof—I'm a book agent!

I only wish I could say that from that time on I simply rolled in wealth and I could say it for that matter, but I might as well tell the truth. It seems Drew City was not quite ripe for a encyclopedia shower and I am too late by quite a few years in discovering what a gold mine of knowledge one of them books is. I might as well of been selling noses—nearly everybody had one! The few which didn't, think the bargain price of ninety-eight bucks is the same kind of a bargain that paying a thousand dollars for a cruller would be and they shooed me away. Even my warmest admirer, viz., myself, had to admit that as a book agent I'm a fairly good box fighter. However, this flop don't discourage me from the art of salesmanship by no means. I simply picked the wrong article for my talents, that's all. It wasn't long before I took a flyer at this game again, but with something else for sale and under different conditions. I'm what you call a trying fool!

The night before I left for Irontown to fight Shifty McTague, me and Judy sat out on the back porch and talked about this and that. I promise I'll phone her the minute the massacre's over, like I always did, no matter where the bout is held. Mrs. Willcox usually waited up to get the returns from me too. While we're sitting there, who comes driving up to the house but Rags. As Judy made no attempt to get up and fall on his neck or the like with welcome, why, he rings the bell, and the next minute Mrs. Willcox lets him in the parlor. She is a dear old lady and treats me like a son, but I sure wish she hadn't let Rags Dempster's money make such a difference in those days. No matter what Rags done, Mrs. Willcox didn't seem able to convict him when she remembers that his father owns the big carpet factory. However, I had no kick coming then, because I'm out there alone on the porch with Judy, and at least one of us is enjoying it, when along comes Nate. Without no preliminaries he tells me it's nine o'clock and time all good little fighters was in bed, especially one which is going to do his stuff the following night. Arguing with Nate comes under the head of impossible, so Judy and me adjourns till the next meeting. As we're passing the parlor Rags is still in there with Mrs. Willcox and she burns me up by calling Judy in.

I went on up to my room and I get in bed, but I can't get to sleep while Rags is down there talking to Judy, even if her mother was among those present. In about ten minutes I hear Judy come tripping up the stairs. Passing my door, her little feet hesitates and she calls softly. "Good night, Gale!" I manage to trim: "Good night, you sweet little angel!" down to "Good night, Judy!" and then she whispers: "I wouldn't stay downstairs after you came up, Gale. I left Rags down there with mother. He'll make her sleepy, and that's much better for her than veronal!"

At that I turned over and slept like a log.

Well, before I get through with life, maybe I'll have a evening more exciting than the time I went up to Irontown, Pa., for the praise-worthy purpose of fighting Mr. Shifty McTague. I say maybe I will—but I doubt it. Them man-eating ironworkers which craved bloodshed and violence seen enough of both of 'em to do 'em till the next draft! Likewise, Nate got his mind all cleared of a subject which had been bothering him for a long time. None of the four boys I stopped in my adventures as a welterweight give me much trouble, and Nate hankered to know could I fight after being knocked a couple of times, pounded to a jelly, and with the mob yelling for my execution. All these and more questions was answered that evening in dear old Irontown.

It was a night of surprises, so let's start with the first. While my handlers is getting me ready in the dressing room, Nate goes out in the arena to examine the ring and see what's doing generally. When he comes back he looks thoughtful indeed. He tells me that the charming ironworkers is so positive that Shifty McTague will slap me for a goal that they've made Shifty a three to one favorite in the betting. Some of 'em are laying seven to five I don't last four rounds.

"I don't like the look of things, kid," says Nate. "Most of them engine makers has been hittin' up the hooch, and they're due to drop a slew of jack when you flatten this boloney. They seem to think his name is Dempsey instead of McTague and your name is Mud instead of Smith! The referee's O. K.—Jack Dougherty, I know him, but them ironworkers is—listen, don't play around with this McTague at all. Go out there and take him as quick as possible, and the faster we get out of this burg after you bounce him, the more chances we got of livin' to a ripe old age, get me?"

Well, that fails to steady my nerves to any great extent, but I'm outwardly cool when we go down the aisle to the ring. The place is packed to the chandeliers, and, just like Kayo Kelly said, the customers pays plenty of loud attention to the blue silk bathrobe Judy give me. However, I was getting used to the crowd's more or less good-natured razzing, and while I can't say it done me any good, it didn't make me want to run back and lock myself in the dressing room for a good cry either! Shifty McTague is already in the ring, and I walk over and politely shake hands with him, while Nate looks over his bandages. McTague is one of them tall, lanky birds, looking more like a boxer than a hitter. He gets a reception from the mob, most of which had their dough on him, which would of satisfied a actor. I draw a storm of hoots, with a few scattered handclaps. To this day I think the handclaps was from my seconds, Shiney Jepps and Kayo Kelly.

Around the ring is a circle of boxes, all full of dignified-looking gents in dress suits—officials of the locomotive works, Nate finds out. The rest of the mob is so excited before the bell that half of 'em can't even sit down. Nate instructs me to go after Shifty McTague's mid-section exclusively in the first round, as Shifty don't look to him like he could take it. Then—the gong!

I come out and go to touch gloves with Shifty, and he sneers at my extended hands, jabbing my head back with his left. The ironworkers yells with joy, the referee warns Shifty, and, as I clinch with him, I hear hisses for him from the ringside boxes. The referee breaks us, and Shifty tries to nail me with his right on the break-away, but he's out of luck. I slid away from the punch and buried my own right glove to the wrist just above the belt. You should of heard him grunt! His face shows me he don't like it, and he tried to dive into a clinch, but, having found out all I wanted to know about him, I'm anxious to wind matters up and get back to Drew City. I pushed him off and smashed a left and right to the body.

The crowd roars as Shifty drops to one knee. He takes "nine," and when he gets up I spill him again with a torrid right hook to the heart. The ironworkers has all became lunatics, and they are giving Shifty enough advice to last him the rest of his life! Shifty stumbles to his feet again, barely beating the count, and this time he's through for the evening. I chase him all over the ring, but it takes two to make a quarrel, and Shifty has become a pacifist of the worst kind. The frenzied ironworkers is bitterly imploring their boy friend to fight, but nothing stirring!

A minute before the bell the perspiring referee manages to pry Shifty away from me, and I promptly slam him in the wind with my left, sending him back on his heels. I tossed a wicked right at the jaw and missed by a foot, but, never the less, Shifty dives head first to the canvas! His admirers is dumfounded and so am I, for that matter. I expected the fight of my life, and Shifty McTague turns out to be not only a set-up, but a quitter to boot. No fun in that! The disgusted referee bends over Shifty, who's laying comfortably on his back blinking up at the lights. As the referee reaches "ten," Shifty's seconds swarm into the ring yelling "Foul," but the sneering referee shoves 'em away and holds up my glove to the petrified crowd.

Then the fun began!

Them ironworkers has bet nearly every nickel on Shifty McTague. For weeks they'd looked forward to a battle they'd never forget, and here he goes to work and quits in the first round. Half of 'em is full of hooch, and, boy, you should of heard 'em! For weeks afterward I'd wake up in the middle of the night hearing that crazy mob yelling like wolves. While Nate's' wrapping my bathrobe around me and stealing nervous glances at the maniacs, I think of that bet Spence made with Rags—must be a clean knockout or the bet's off, and I never knocked out Shifty McTague any more than I discovered radium. The mob's booing me to a fare-thee-well, as if it's my fault Shifty McTague is no game-cock! Then the matchmaker climbs into the ring—half the attendance is in it already—and shoves his way over to us.

"Do you guys expect to get paid off for this hippodrome?" he snarls at Nate. "Why, them babies out there will lynch you and your boy in a couple of minutes, and then they'll come back and lynch me for makin' this match! Listen to 'em—look at 'em—try to get out of here; 'at's all!"

"Ain't they no coppers in this slab?" asks Nate. Him and the matchmaker's so scared they make me laugh, on the level!

"Listen!" I butt in—and they listen—"I don't know as I blame the crowd. I only boxed two minutes, and I ain't even warmed up. Tell you what I'll do—I'll step the other nine rounds with any boy of my weight you can dig up! Now——"

But with a yelp of joy the matchmaker is hollering for the timekeeper to ring the bell for silence. He gets something like quiet, and when the crowd hears the announcement they go wild with delight and scurry back to their seats. The "Entertainment Committee" of the ironworkers' festival gets busy, and while Nate's still telling me I'm cuckoo and wringing his hands, a guy in a bathrobe is boosted into the ring from the other side. Sweet Grandpa, he's a light-heavyweight, or else I'm a Spanish mackeral!

Nate rushes around wildly, waving his arms and yelling murder, but the "Entertainment Committee" pushes him aside. The referee takes time to bend down and whisper in my ear that he'll stop it if it looks like murder, and the ironworkers can cry their eyes out for all he cares. The elephant in the other corner is introduced as "Battling Lee of Harrisburg," and he getsa rousing reception.

Battling Lee refuses to weigh in for Nate, so the bout is announced as "catchweights." I ain't trying to alibi myself. I don't need no alibi, but Battling Lee's got fifteen pounds on me if he's got a ounce. He starts out to win in a round, and he come near doing it too! Having it on me in height, weight, and reach, he gets down to business with the bell. Under Nate's instructions to keep moving all the time, so's this big stiff can't set for a punch, I step around him, using a left jab which he avoids with ease, his long reach helping him to beat me to the punch every time.

In half a minute my nose and lips is bleeding, which brings three thousand cheers from the mob, and then, obeying Nate's frantic howls, I drop long-range tactics and get in close. I know my only chance is to keep boring in and wear him down, he's far too big for me to goal with one punch. Some stiff short-arm jolts to the mid-section sells Battling Lee the idea of keeping me away, and a sudden left swing to the ribs crashes me against the ropes.

I bounce off 'em into a straight right which cuts my ear. The mob jumps on the seats bawling for a knockout, and I commencce to feel dizzy and look wildly at Nate for instructions. He hollers at me to clinch, but Battling Lee measures me with a left jab and then hooks his right to my stomach. This one come near being the business, but the bell stopped hostilities with us clinched in my corner.

I am a very tired boy when I flop on the stool. Nate shoves a orange into my mouth for me to suck and jams the old ammonia under my nose. My left ear is bleeding badly, but caustic stopped that, the stuff biting into me till the water runs out of my eyes. Nate tells me to keep my mouth closed or a uppercut will tear my tongue off, and to stay as close to this guy as I can.

I nod and run right out into a clinch with the bell. This ain't what the ironworkers wants, and they howl for me to stand off and fight, while the bunch in the ringside boxes screams for me to hold on. Battling Lee wrenches away from me and lands solidly with a right to the head. I miss a left and right to the jaw, but connect with a right hook to the heart that stings Lee and makes him back water.

There's where I make a fatal mistake! Half goofy as I am, I think Lee's gone. I rush in wide open to send over the finisher, and that's what Lee's waiting for. He ducks my right and crashes a overhand left to my jaw. I went down like he shot me through the heart, and I suffer from that one punch till long after the fight's over. Honest, I'm in a trance from then on! I crawled to my feet in time to beat a count I can't even hear, cover up, and take a pasting I'll remember to my dying day. That round is two years long! Lee's too excited at the prospects of a knockout to time his blows, or I'd never of weathered the storm. As it is, I am floored three times in that horrible second round, and I'm on my shoulder blades at the bell.

The next four rounds is no fight, but a nightmare! I don't think I hit Battling Lee five solid punches, but he hit me with everything but the time-keeper's watch. The house is in one continual uproar, with the ironworkers imploring Lee to murder me, and be done with it, and the guys in the boxes howling for the referee to stop the assassination. Lee is battling me from pillar to post with cutting, slashing punches that rip me to ribbons. I must of been a sight for a dispensary along about the fifth round.

Every time I stagger to my corner at the gong a flood of water from Nate's bucket meets me half-ways, and once I see water on Nate too, running down his cheeks from his eyes. But I see all this like a fellow in a dream, and I remember the din from the other side of the ropes bothers me worse than Lee's wallops now.

This Lee is raw too, don't think he ain't. He's so mad because he can't knock me stiff that he does everything but bite me! He butts, lays on me with that extry fifteen pounds, and rabbit punches me in the clinches, that chopping blow with the side of his glove on the back of my neck, just about paralyzing me for a minute afterwards. All I do is cover up, clinch, sock over a right when I think I see a opening, then—take it!

When I come to my corner in the third round Nate says I am weeping, and during the rest between the fourth and fifth he says I sit there and laugh in a high voice till he thinks I have went cuckoo, and he's scared silly. He keeps asking me should he throw in the sponge. I says if he throws in the sponge, he better be in Egypt when I come out of the ring!

Early in the seventh round I commence to notice that Battling Lee's tiring fast. He's been doing all the walloping and he's about punched himself out trying to stop me. Although I'm pretty well shopworn, I guess I ain't as tired as he is, because I've only been catching, while he's been pitching. About the middle of this round Lee cut my right eye with a straight left, and this is one of the times I think I see a opening for my right. I hook him under the chin and his head goes back like it's on a hinge.

They jump up in the ringside boxes and how! themselves hoarse for me to follow up my advantage. I don't need their advice. I'm on top of Lee like a wildcat! I waste a dozen haymakers before my head steadies and I take aim. Then a right swing sends Lee to his knees and the mob groans. Lee waits for "eight" and gets up with a silly grin on his face, like he's thinking "How did that happen?" I show him how it happened right away by dumping him on his face with a left and right to the jaw.

This time a dead silence seems to fall over the arena, broke only by the cheers of my swell rooters in the boxes. Lee looks dead to the world, laying on the floor, and them ironworkers has bet on him in a effort to get back the jack they drop on Shifty McTague. As the referee reaches "nine" without a flicker of a muscle from Mr. Lee, the timekeeper rings the bell, cutting the round short by twelve seconds and robbing me of a clean knockout!

I skip to my corner looking like the battle field after the first day of the Marne. But appearances is deceiving. I feel like a million dollars! The only thing bothers me is my right eye, which is closed as tight as a drum. During the rest Battling Lee's handlers surround the referee and they seems to be quite a argument going on. Lee is sprawled back in his stool, his head rolling around like his necks broke. Then the referee comes over to our corner and asks Nate if he'll accept a draw.

He says Battling Lee's in bad shape and the ironworkers will surely mob us if I knock him cold in the next round and they go broke on the fight. A lot of swell sportsmen, hey? The referee's advice is to take a draw and beat it. Nate looks out at the ugly crowd and tells me he thinks the referee's right. Besides, he adds, I can see out of only one eye now, and if by any chance Lee comes around during the rest, he'll probably knock me kicking in the next frame.

I just let Nate go on talking without paying the slightest of attention. I'm thinking of that moleson Battling Lee's chin which'm going to sight at for the knockout in the next round. I'll bring his guard down with a left to the stomach and then I'll crash him with a right hook to the chin! That's what I keep saying to myself over and over . . . left to the body and right to the chin, left to the body and right to the chin. Even humming it to the air of "Casey Jones." When Nate stops for breath I says all his conversation to me is that much apple sauce. Then I says they must be some way he can get my right eye open. Nate grabs my head and turns around so's I can see the threatening mob. He says he's been in these kind of jams at mining camps, and he's positive we'll never leave town alive if I knock Battling Lee for a row of silos.

I says let's stop Lee first and then we'll take on the ironworkers. This Lee has played put and take with me for seven rounds and he's fouled me at least a half dozen times. O. K. Now it's my turn. Am I going to let a mob of burn sports do me out of my fun? Let 'em try to stop me! Anyways, they ain't no such thing as a "draw" in boxing, no matter what amybody says. "One guy always has a shade on the other. I didn't want no draws. I wanted to either knock 'em dead or get knocked and be done with it!

Knockout Kelly butts in and tells Nate I'm right and to leave me win my fight. He points to a scar under his own eye and says that once when his eye was closed in a battle Nate made a little cut under it which let out the clogged blood, and he was able to force the lid open with his glove and keep stepping. I turn around to Nate.

"Get out your penknife, Nate, and let's go!" I says.

I hear wild cheers right under my stool. It's the dress-suited guys in the ringside boxes which has been taking all this in. Nate moans, but he opens his penknife and makes a slit under my right eye where it's swollen. Then him and Kayo squeezes it. It don't hurt—much. The referee waves Lee's seconds out of the ring and the bell clangs. I got up slowly, holding my right eye open with my gloves till I get a fair view of Lee. I'm still humming: "A left to the body and a right to the chin!" Lee's handlers yells for him to go after my burn eye, and he lets a panic-stricken left go which bounces off my hunched shoulder. Then I set myself and drove my left into his ribs. Down comes Lee's guard and sock goes my right on that mole, just about the point of his chin. His knees buckle under him and the great big stiff slides under the lower rope to the floor, as cold as a shark's eye!

My friends in the boxes acts like raving maniacs, and silk hats and canes gets hurled in the air. But my little pals, the ironworkers, rushes the ring, howling murder! As they reach the ringside boxes, they see: who's who—their bosses—and the leaders faulter in their stride. One old guy gets up and begins bawling 'em out plenty. What he's saying I don't know, except some of it is that if they don't beat it they'll find their jobs at the locomotive factory is a thing of the past. The next clear memory I got of anything I'm on the train for Drew City.

About half ways back some men comes through our car and they seem a bit familiar. When they stop at the seat me and Nate's occupying, it dawns on me that these is the babies which was in the ringside boxes at the fight. One of 'em, a dignified, gray-haired gent, bends over and pats my shoulder, saying he's one of the big noises at the locomotive plant and he wants to apologize for the way his hired men acted. Then he shakes my hand and says I am a boy which will go a long ways, because I've got a fighting heart. The rest of the gents nods pleasantly to me and they all pass on.

Well, Spence is at the station when we get to Drew City and he's pumping my hand off when somebody calls his name.

"Hello—my father's here, Gale!" says Spence, kind of excited. "He wasn't due until to-morrow—say, you're going to meet dad right now!"

Meet dad with my face looking like a war map! I pulled away, but dad's in front of me.

"Dad," says Spence, "this is Gale Galen, who I told you about. He's just won a bout at——"

"At Irontown!" butts in dad, laughing at the expression which must of been on my face. He's no less than the man which pat me on the shoulder on the train! "Young man," he says to me, "some time I wish you would autograph the—er—my dress shirt. The front of it is spattered with the fighting blood of a he-man, and I'll get a thrill every time I look at it!"