Fighting Back/Round 7
Polo Grounds, N. Y.—Fighting one of the greatest battles of his career, Kid Roberts, challenger for the world's heavyweight championship, knocked out K. O. Ford here to-day in the seventh round of a scheduled fifteen-round contest. Both men took a lot of punishment, but Kid Roberts proved the hardest hitter. A terrible right uppercut to Ford's jaw one minute and twenty seconds after the start of the seventh round ended one of the most spectacular bouts in the annals of the game. It was a triumph of slugger over boxer.
Tomato sauce—it was a triumph of a fightin' heart over a faint one! The rest of the above newspaper account of the Kid Roberts-Knockout Ford battle, I guess you've already perused. There was two or three columns about the thing in all the papers, with views of the fight-mad mob—35,000 filed through the dear old turnstiles—great photos of the knockdowns and other high lights of the quarrel, includin' the sensational knockout. It was a whale of a fight and the pop-eyed sport writers done it full justice, they did for a fact! Plenty breakfast ham and eggs growed cold and plenty wives growed hot the next mornin', whilst propped against the sugar bowl the sport page was hungrily devoured by friend husband.
But speakin' of alligator pears, there was a little coincident connected with that battle of the century which failed to appear in the interestin' reports of it. That's because the newspaper guys didn't know nothin' about it. I do! Like the color in a two-buck shirt, it's bound to come out eventually, so why not now?
After we come back to Gotham from the noted Catskill Mountains Kid Roberts goes into a serious conference with me and Ptomaine Joe. The Kid was all business and laughs was conspicuous by their absence! Without wastin' no time on preliminaries, Kid Roberts says he's just the opposite to satisfied with the headway he's been makin' toward the world's championship. His last three bouts has been fought on the exterior of fight clubs and all he's got out of 'em was the exercise. Not so good!
There was still much moan in the Kid's matrimoany, too. Dolores is tourin' the State, campaignin' for a seat in the Senate. She stubbornly refused to give Kid Roberts a tumble till he checked out of the fight racket. This is somethin' the Kid won't do till he's built up a important bank roll and since his attempted comeback he's barely clicked off expenses. In other words, the boy's tired of wearin' straw hats in the winter time. He's gettin' nowheres and somethin' must be done. That's the way the Kid put it up to me, addin' that unless I could show him some speed he'd haul off and try his hand at bein' his own manager!
The heavyweight crown still rested on the head of Mr. Bob Young. Bobbie was too proud to fight for less than $300,000 cash in advance, half the movin'-picture loot, the hot-dog concession at the arena, his own hand-picked referee, the bottlin' rights to the Pacific Ocean, or what have you? Young's argument was that he's entitled to these meager rewards, as he's the drawin' card, bein' champion. Accordin' to that figurin', the ex-Kaiser should be gave $10,000,000,000, as look at the mob he drawed to Europe a few years ago!
How the so ever, Bob Young didn't wish to swap smacks with us under no circumstances. Mr. Champion had already tasted the delights of goin' in there with Kid Roberts, and as the Kid had knocked him as stiff as a drum major's back, Bob wasn't exactly sold on the idea of takin' him on again.
At first the sport writers laughed off my account of that fracas in Mexico, but when I kept on bombardin' Young with challenges and Young kept on passin' us by for third-rate set-ups, them editors begin to get thoughtful. The clean-cut, handsome, hard-hittin' Kid's sensational career had always made him a great favorite with the best people in the world—the newspaper guys. Young's stallin' us off was makin' most of 'em figure that maybe there was a drop of truth in my claim that Kid Roberts had actually stopped the champion. Pretty soon they all printed my story—somethin' they had flatly refused to do before—and trained deadly sarcastical typewriters on Young and his manager, Toledo Eddie Hicks.
This kind of pressure done the trick. No champion can afford to high-hat the sport writers, unless he's ready to get his name in "Who's Through!" The sport editors is the babies which makes them enormous purses a fact instead of a wish. They smoke up interest in the fights, the principals, and the promoters. They make a champ's dizzy demands sound reasonable and the contender look to have a chance. They control the biggest asset one individual fight or the entire game has, a thing worth hundreds of thousands a year and you can get it for nothin' if you're a right guy—publicity!
So Mr. Barberi Youngkowsky, otherwise known as Bob Young, heavyweight champion of the civilized world, agreed to risk his title in a fight with Mr. Kane Halliday, otherwise known as Kid Roberts.
Before comin' out in the papers with it, Toledo Eddie Hicks sent for me, requestin' the boon of a private interview. The two of us got together in his room at the Hotel Epathy. This time our deliberations was a quiet affair, with no hair mussed or the like. Toledo Eddie greeted me with a glad smile and stood by, still grinnin' whilst I tried the doors, searched the closets, and looked beneath the bed for possible undercover spectators. Not that I suspected Edward was not to be trusted—I was positive of it! When I fin'ly convinced myself that we was really alone and this bozo wasn't tryin' to put over a fast one, I sit down, back to the wall. Eddie then broke out cigars and some New Jersey Scotch. I fell for the smokes, but passed the brew up, as it's a hobby of mine not to take embalmin' fluid till after I'm actually dead!
"Well, yegg," I says, "what's your racket? And, remember, I don't help you stick up no banks!"
"Why get rosey with me?" says Eddie in a pained voice. "Why can't me and you be friends?"
"Why can't a rat and a ferret be friends?" I sneer. "Eddie, you're as crooked as a ball player's thumb! You been wrong all your life and when you bump off you'll proposition the devil for the asbestos concession in Hades and then gyp him. They're holdin' mail for you now at Sing Sing! Why should I find you tasty?"
"For one thing," says Eddie, unmoved, as he pours himself a generous snifter, "I'm goin' to give you a fight with Young. Think that over!"
I leaped off the chair.
"If you're clowin' about this, I'll cook you!" I says. "Where's the phone? We'll get the sport writers here and"
"Don't get so swift!" interrupts Eddie, holdin' up his hand. "We're champion and we'll call all plays, get me? You guys got to do what papa tells you. I says we'd fight you and we'll do that thing—the minute you knock Fred Fleming and Kayo Ford for a loop!"
I sunk back with a groan.
"You big stiff!" I hollered when I got my breath. "Some day they'll pinch you for tryin' to get a camel through the eye of a needle! We got to stop Ford and Fleming first, hey? That's like a guy havin' to dive off Brooklyn Bridge to prove he's able to step into a bathtub full of water!"
"If Kid Roberts thinks he can take the champ, why should a couple of pushovers like Ford and Fleming disturb him?" asks Eddie coolly.
"Pushovers, hey?" I howled. "Ford has win his last fifteen fights by knockouts and Fleming ain't never been slapped off his feet. Why, you mock orange, I think either of 'em could make that big tramp of yours love it and you think so, too!"
"Be yourself!" says Eddie scornfully. "Here's the layout—take it or leave it. Kid Roberts has went back so far that nobody gives him a chance with Bob Young. Put 'em in a ring to-morrow and the only attendance would be the handlers and the referee! The Kid's got to be built up with the fans. On the other hand, both Ford and Fleming has a big followin'. Lots of maniacs like you think either of 'em would extend Young and that both is entitled to a crack at the champ on their records, All right! Let Roberts go out and knock 'em kickin' and the public will think he's good, won't they? Sure, they will! Then we'll throw Young and Roberts in the ring and nine million nuts will claw each other to get through the gate! If Kid Roberts really feels that Young's got the skin he'd love to touch, that's the way it'll happen or we don't box you. Well, c'mon, what are you thinkin' about?"
"Honest to Boston, I could get deported for what I'm thinkin' about you, you scissor bill!" I says, glarin' at him.
"See if I care!" grins Eddie, and I beat it, slammin' the door on his laughin': "Happy Arbor Day!"
That was the tip-off, of course, that Toledo Eddie hadn't the faintest intentions of lettin' Bob Young fight Kid Roberts if there was any way out of it. Both Knockout Ford and Fred Fleming was as tough as a year in jail. I'd seen 'em go and I knew what they had—and it was enough, don't think it wasn't! A month before, they'd stepped fifteen rounds to a gory enough draw to of satisfied Nero! Toledo Eddie figured he was sittin' pretty by makin' us meet 'em before fightin' his champ. This jazzbo thought it a cinch that one or the other would knock the Kid off and thus put him in the discard as a challenger. In any event, the time we'd spend in makin' and trainin' for these two matches would lay the angry sport writers off Young and further postpone a bout with Kid Roberts.
I was still burnt up when I dashed back to our hotel and give Kid Roberts the low-down on matters. The nervous Kid has been impatiently pacin' the room waitin' to hear the result of the interview, whilst the 200-pound Ptomaine Joe was writin' a burlesque on a letter to some cutey. Just as I come in, Ptomaine looks up with a goofy grin on his weird pan and craves to know how many "u's" they is in the word "love."
I throwed a chair cushion at Ptomaine and immediately laid Toledo Eddie's proposition before Kid Roberts, expectin' him to go right up in flames like I did. My idea was to turn Eddie down cold, ask the newspapers to call the public's attention to the way Young was duckin' a fight with the Kid and demand Young or nobody! I even thought of claimin' the world's championship, since Young refused to box us for it. Ptomaine Joe generously offered to fight Knockout Ford and Fred Fleming in the same ring, just to get 'em out of the Kid's way. The air is full of advice and wild schemes, when Kid Roberts cuts us both off short.
"Boys, perhaps Toledo Eddie is right!" he says. "Maybe the sporting public would like to see me dispose of Ford and Fleming before going against the champion. You know it's months since they've seen me with gloves on around here. I also think that a couple of stiff fights under my belt before meeting Young would be the greatest training I could possibly get and"
"But why take a chance, Kid?" I butt in. "You rate a fight with Young right now and we all know that means the world's title and a million bucks for you. On the other hand, Ford and Fleming—well, you know how good them birds is! Suppose one of 'em should get lucky and bounce you? Even Young don't wish no part of them guys! It looks like a sucker play to me, Kid—let's hold out for the champ or nobody!"
But Kid Roberts shakes his head.
"Joe, that would only be delaying the inevitable," he says. "If I met and defeated Young now, I'd have to give either Ford or Fleming first chance at the championship, as they'd still be the outstanding contenders. I never got anywhere avoiding an issue and I'm not going to start that system now! Toledo Eddie's ultimatum at least offers immediate action and that's what I want more than anything else. Also, I need the money! Get me Ford and Fleming on the best terms you can make. I'll be ready to fight in a month."
"I'll feel out Knockout Ford's manager, then," I says, with a sigh. "We'll take Ford first, because I think Fleming's the most poisonous of the two!"
"Get me Fleming, then!" bawls Ptomaine. "I'll be right in a month myself!"
"You big blah!" I sneer. "You couldn't lick Fleming's grandmother!"
"I would if she got giddy with me," says Ptomaine. "No foolin'!"
Well, it wasn't hard to sign Knockout Ford with Kid Roberts and just twice that easy to get a promoter to stage the combat. I gambled on 35 per cent of the gate and as it turned out we drew down for our bit $23,674.85. What the promoter give Ford I never did find out and I don't care. I only know what Kid Roberts give him, which was a-plenty!
I readied the Kid in Sapville, a slab up New York State, about fifty miles from Broadway. Besides Ptomaine, I brought along Jimmy de Long, the greatest trainer of fighters which ever went behind one! I also carried Jack Hill and Battlin' Vernon, a couple of good, beefy heavies which could take it, and Ollie Pierce, a fast welterweight, to develop the Kid's speed. With the prospects of a crack at the heavyweight crown's tarin' him in the face if he got past Knockout Ford, Kid Roberts took to his trainin' like a famished rabbit takes to a leaf of cabbage and soon had his weary handlers wishin' they had entered the ministry instead of the ring!
The daily routine at the camp run as smaoth as a lawyer's tongue and the only annoyance was the burly Mr. Ptomaine Joe. The Kid says Ptomaine kept him from gettin' the blues, but to me he was just unnecessary overhead! He never could master the first rule of boxin', which is simply to keep yourself off the floor. His idea of conditionin' himself for a mill was to go out and get a shampoo and his face massaged and it was the same as impossible to keep him off the gin and on the gym.
The two unlucky bouts of Ptomaine's in which he run a poor second by no means killed off his interest in the manly art of breakin' noses. Day or night there wasn't a minute that he wasn't pesterin' me to get him a scrap with anyone, any weight, any color, over any distance, and at any price! Even the Kid kept urgin' me to give this tamale a chance, so to keep 'em both quiet and present myself with some rest, I signed Ptomaine to swap swings with Two-Punch McGazzati, heavyweight champion of Lake Erie, in a six-round preliminary to the Kid Roberts-Knockout Ford meelee.
"You think I'm a mug, hey?" says Ptomaine joyfully, when I told him he was scheduled for another fearful pastin'. "Well, you're due for the surprise of your life. I'll clout 'at mock turtle so cold 'at when he comes to his clothes won't fit him!"
"If you're able to answer the gong for round two, you'll surprise me to the swoonin' stage!" I says. "Still and all, maybe you can cope with Two-Punch McGazzati, at that. He ain't fought for a year, so he should be a spread for you."
"Why ain't he fought for a year?" asks Ptomaine.
"Oh, he's just been under suspension," I says carelessly. "He killed the last guy he boxed!"
"For cryin' out loud!" gasps Ptomaine. "You pick 'em soft for me, don't you? How much sugar do I get for executin' this murderer?"
"Ptomaine," I says seriously, "if by some mysterious miracle you smack this fellow down, your wages for the afternoon's work will be three hundred bucks. Should he stop you, somethin' that's certain, not only do you not get a nickel—but I'm goin' to fine you five hundred fish for wastin' my time in carryin' you along! If that's too rich for your blood, you can cancel the bout right now!"
Ptomaine tries the terrific feat of thinkin'.
"Get me that big false alarm," says this clown, after a minute. "I got three hundred iron men saved and like as not I can borrey the other two hundred from the Kid."
I have met some maniacs in this game, but that's the first one I run across yet which was dyin' to pay five hundred smackers for the privilege of bein' knocked for a Flemish bath-house!
Well, to make a short story long, about ten days before Kid Roberts is to fight Knockout Ford nothin' less than a movin-picture outfit arrives in the hamlet where we're camped. I had long ago closed our trainin' quarters to visitors, like I always do during the last few days' gruellin' workouts, even the open-mouthed hicks from the village bein' barred. One mornin' when I go down to the little post office for the mail, a jobbie comes up to me and accuses me of bein' Joe Murphy, world-famous manager of the world-famous Kid Roberts.
I broke down and pleaded guilty to the charge, and the stranger's next imitation was to identify himself. He's Mr. Hubert de Grasse, he brags, and he baffles the almshouse by directin' the movies of the unreasonably beautiful Myrtle Magnificent, of Earthquake, Cal., who I must of heard tell of. I never had and could prove it, but I yessed him, anyways. Hubert then testified that his company is there on location makin' some scenes of "Cuckoo Husbands," Myrtle's latest yokel-thriller, and they would like nothin' better than to see Kid Roberts train.
I told Mr. Director that I deeply sympathized with him, but his request was out, as Kid Roberts was on the brinks of a important fight and nobody could see him but his handlers, not even President Coolidge. Hubert de Grasse pleaded and coaxed, but I was so firm that alongside of me the Rock of Gibraltar would look like a jelly! Even when Hubert called over Myrtle Magnificent herself to help him, there was no give to me. That shows the world I'm strong-minded, as this iris-soothin' disturbance had more curves than a guy pitchin' a no-hit game and a smile which would distract attention from that kind of a contest! But I was Myrtle-proof, so I just says nothin' stirrin', give 'em a polite bow to split between 'em and danced off. I thought that was the end of 'em, but I couldn't think my way into a clean collar!
Gettin' exactly no service from me, this magic-lantern director turns his attentions to the half-wit of our party, Ptomaine Joe. Every time I sent the silly Ptomaine into town for somethin' we needed, Hubert and Myrtle promoted him unbeknownst to me. They fussed all over the big banana, let him watch 'em "shootin'" their idiotical movie from a place right beside the camera, introduced him to all the female members of the troupe, and told him it was a rotten shame he took up boxin' instead of pictures, as they could plainly see by viewin' him that a wonderful actor was lost to the public. You can imagine the effect all this hokum had on a guy like Ptomaine, which as usual had crashed wildly in love with Myrtle the first time he looked at this panic. Here he was bein' allowed the rare boon of seein' a movie bein' made from the inside, caperin' around with the beautiful bathin' girls durin' his spare moments and bein' heartily assured by one and all that he was the crocodile's watch fob! A few days of this thomas foolery and Ptomaine was walkin' on air. He didn't know what it was all about, but he's as happy as a girl with her first engagement ring and useless to me at our camp.
As a further bribe to Mr. Ptomaine—already sold, if they only knew it—Myrtle hung around this gil continuously, even goin' to the extent of posin' for publicity photos with him. In return, Ptomaine told her he was the greatest scrapper since Cain, had fought 386 battles, only lost one, and that with a heavily armed gorilla. But this mug surrendered completely when the director puts a uniform and make-up on him and lets him appear before the camera as a policeman in a brief scene with Myrtle. That scene was a wow!
Meanwhile, Ptomaine's trainin' for Two-Punch McGazzati was absolutely forgot, in spite of the tact that I constantly reminded him he'd get beat up for nothin' and have to pay a fine of $500 on top of that if he lost.
"Stop squawkin'!" he tells me. "Myrtle's goin' to watch 'at fight and with her lookin' on out of them hypnotizin' navy-blues eyes of hers, I'll lay 'at blank cartridge like a rug!"
No kiddin', them movie birds should of been jailed for cruelty to animals for the run-around they give that baby!
As the results of all this, Ptomaine managed to prevail on Kid Roberts to secretly meet his admirers, which was all they was after from the start. When I fin'ly bump Ptomaine off, I'll go before any jury in the world and tell 'em only a tenth of my reasons for croakin' the big dumb-bell and they'll not only let me go; they'll give me a lovin' cup!
Ptomaine frames the meetin' to take place whilst him and the Kid is supposed to be out doin' road work one day. The instant they shook hands, the fascinatin' Myrtle Magnificent begins doin' her stuff and she put everything she had—plenty!—on the ball. Her open admiration and the combined pleadin's of the rest of her gang wins the good-natured Kid Roberts over in no time at all, and although I yelled murder, he let's 'em come out to see him wind up his trainin' for Knockout Ford. That was one of the most fatal invitations he ever extended in his life and showed me that courtesy was no virtue, but a vice!
Not content with bein' a privileged spectator in the trainin' camp, Hubert de Grasse wants to set up a camera and take some movies of Kid Roberts and his sparrin' partners. But even the Kid balked at that, whilst I told this director that if I had his nerve I'd bottle the Hudson River and sell it for orangeade! How the so ever, the busy Myrtle went to work on Kid Roberts, assisted by the love-lorn Ptomaine, and once again they score a win! The director swears on the hotel register that the pictures won't be showed till long after the Kid has fought Knockout Ford ard then would only be used as "atmosphere" in "Cuckoo Husbands," the film they're makin'. He points out the publicity it would mean for Kid Roberts and how other fighters, equally as famous, had not scorned to appear before the humble camera. Honest, that guy talked steady for a hour and then Myrtle relieved him.
She started her summin' up by statin' that "Cuckoo Husbands" would make or break her with the public and the world knew how anxious she is to have everything double perfect. Thus, fight scenes made at a real fighter's camp would naturally have it all over anything faked at a movie studio, etc. In jumps Mons de Grasse at this critical point to add that of course they was willin' to pay for the honor. Seein' that Kid Roberts was goin' to let 'em have their will with him, anyways, that last crack of the director's appealed to me. I quoted him a price which I figured would knock him insensible, but he calmly says my figure is jake with him and writes me a check. I got it yet—try and cash it!
But it was really Myrtle Magnificent which made the Kid consent to bein' filmed. That very mornin' she had captured his unqualified admiration by doin' some blood-curdlin' feats of recklessness in a plane flown by a stunt flyer and supposedly the big thrill of the picture. Courage is the one thing Kid Roberts is crazy about and has more of himself than anybody I ever played around with. So he tells me that if this charmin' girl is willin' to risk that schoolgirl complexion and her young life by cuttin' capers on the wing of a airplane slicin' the breeze at a hundred miles the hour, he's willin' to risk breakin' a rule by lettin' her camera him for her movie.
Accordin'ly a battery of cameras and these fearful Kleig lights is set up around the trainin' ring and every move of Kid Roberts photographed from every possible angle. The director was particularly keen on what he calls "close-ups" and took a flock of these, especially of the Kid's most effective punches, many of which we had just invented for this highly important setto with Knockout Ford.
Three days of this stuff and I chased the movie company out of the camp on the run! Only for Kid Roberts I would of murdered 'em all in hot blood, for I'm red-headed with rage. The Kid's got to step in the ng with Kayo Ford in less than forty-eight hours and he can't see a foot in front of him out of two redly swollen and highly inflamed eyes!
It had seemed to me from the first that them blindin' lights had been placed much too close to the trainin' ring and likewise there appeared to be entirely too many of 'em. The director, how the so ever, had soothin'ly explained to me that all this was necessary to get the best results. He said a tongueful!
The day of the big fight, Kid Roberts wakes up with his eyes still in bad shape, though some of the inflammation has went down. Myrtle Magnificent talked her way past the guards I had outside the camp and give the Kid a lotion to put on his burn glims. She tells the Kid that she's worse than terrible sorry for bein' nothin' but grief to him, but she adds that he's merely got a slight touchof "Kleig eyes," which they all fall prey to in the movies. It's nothin' to worry about, says Myrtle, and will quickly pass away once he plasters 'em with the goo she give him. She's another one which should of been gave the last lesson first!
Well, as if the trouble with the Kid's eyes ain't enough to poison us that day a hitch comes up at the last minute over the referee. The promoter has me on long-distance nearly all mornin', fin'ly insistin' that I come right down to New York and help straighten matters out personally. I grabbed Ptomaine and went ahead, leavin' Kid Roberts to shove off later by auto with the other handlers, so's he'd attract as little attention as possible. The Kid always hated display in anything from clothes to humans.
As Ptomaine's pettin' party with Two-Punch McGazzati was scheduled to go at 8 p. m.—bein' the first preliminary—I sent him out to the abattoir, whilst I started over to the promoter's office to tend to the squawk about the third man in the ring. I didn't care who Knockout Ford's choice was—all me and the Kid wanted was a guy which could count up to ten!
I'm millin' through Times Square, tossed this way and that by the excited mob which is pourin' into the subway en route to the fight, when somebody grabs at my coat. Holdin' on to my watch and roll, I swung around, but it wasn't no dip had me. It was "Honest-Dollar" Reilly, one of the biggest gamblers which ever was ready to lay eight to five it would rain or eight to five it wouldn't. I still held on to my valuables. Reilly had a flock of hooch under his belt—in fact, his tongue should of been plastered with revenue stamps!
"Well, well, well!" he chortles. "See who we have here! You better watch your step, Mister Sap, or some of these city slickers will sell you Grant's Tomb! How d'ye like the movies?"
"What movies?" I ask him.
"Ha, ha, ha!" bust out Reilly. "What movies, hey! Well, what a Patsy they made out of you!"
"How come, Reilly?" I snapped out, grabbin' his arm. Did you ever have a feelin' that somethin' tough was goin' to happen? I had it plenty right then!
"I'll tell you how come and then you'll take arsenic!" grins Reilly. "You and your box fighter has fell for one of the rawest frames ever pulled off in this man's town! That movie company you entertained up-State was the bunk, the so-called Myrtle Magnificent don't know a lens from a ice-cream freezer and the alleged director was only sprung from the Big House two weeks ago. The rest of the gang was his mob and they're good, I'll say they're good!"
I'm dumfounded!
"But, look here, what was the big idea?" I gasp, in a panic-stricken voice. "Why should they clown with us?"
"Clown your grandmother!" says Reilly. "Them birds don't never clown—they did a first-class job! They've just about made Kid Roberts a set-up for Knockout Ford, that's all. The Kid's a nine-to-five favorite now, which means somebody will cut a juicy meron wien your boy goes out! The near-movie gang was hired by the big operatorsand, listen, I had nothin' to do with it. I don't mind stripes in a suit, but I don't want to wear that suit for no ten years, get me?"
"But what—" I began wildly.
"Gimme a chance to talk, will you?" Reilly cuts me off. "Every night the movies of the Kid's daily workouts was rushed to New York, where every punch was carefully studied by Knockout Ford and his pilot. That's just one angle. They put a lot of dazzlin' lights around the ring up in your camp, didn't they? Sure, they did! Well, how's the Kid's eyes to-day? I'll lay eight to five he couldn't see the East River from Brooklyn Bridge!"
"But that—that woman gave him a lotion," I pants, almost speechless as the whole double-cross dawns on me. "She says—"
"I told you them birds was good!" butts in Reilly, half admirin'ly. "They overlook nothin'! That lotion was a great touch. I can figure what was in it—it'll about blind him!"
I waited to hear no more! I didn't even think to ask "Honest-Dollar" Reilly where he got all this dope. I'm dashin' away to phone the camp, when Reilly stops me.
"You can't do nothin' now," he says. "Not a thing! Remember that aviator which flew Myrtle around up there?"
I nod my head dizzily, wonderin' what else was comin'!
"Well," says Reilly, "unless somethin' slipped up, Kid Roberts is on his way here now in a plane with Mister Stunt Flyer at the helm. And wait—just wait till your battler gets out of that airplane!"
I phoned the camp—and got: "They don't answer!"
At the gate of the arena I got to identify myself to forty guys to even get inside, and the first one to greet me is Ptomaine Joe. He's on his way back to the dressin' room, his bout bein' all over. Honest, he looks like a catastrophe on its way to occur somewheres! The only place on him which ain't cut and bruised is under his arms. I stopped him.
"How did you make out?" I ask.
Ptomaine gloomily sticks his hand into a pocket of his bathrobe and drags out a greasy roll of bills "There's your sve hundred!" he muttered. "Two-Punch McGazzati let 'em both go at once. A fool and his money is soon parted!"
And, with bowed head, the battered Ptomaine stumbled on amidst the razzin' of the jeerin' mob.
At 10 p. m.—the hour set for the principals in the big fight to enter the ring—there was no sign of Kid Roberts, but Knockout Ford comes down the aisle with his handlers and climbs through the ropes, hailed with a wild storm of cheers. Sun-darkened face heavily vaselined to avoid as may cuts as possible, brawny body cocoa-buttered over the rollin' bulgin' muscles, he looked ready—and that word covers it all! The referee and the announcer comes in and talks matters over with the timekeepers. Ptomaine turns up, his swollen pan a mass of court plaster, to go in Kid Roberts's corner. I killed a little time by walkin' over and carefully examinin' the bandages on Ford's hands and inspectin' the br-and-new gloves layin' in their box at the middle of the ring. Still no sign of Kid Roberts and, believe me, I'm pretty low! Almost as worried and nervous as I am as he looks over the sea of excited faces, the promoter paces up and down outside the ring. He'd never phoned me about the referee at all! The newspaper guys, busy beside their clickin' telegraph instruments sendin' in the preliminary stuff, are askin' me what's the matter with the Kid? Where is he? The crowd takes that important question up with a continuous howl and stampin' of 35,000 pairs of impatient feet.
Suddenly the loud buzzin' of a propeller rises above the noise of the mob and a airplane circles over the arena. At first, only me and a small part of the attendance looked up. There was nothin' unusual in the sight and what they craved to see was Kid Roberts. Well, they seen him!
To the amazement of the crowd, the plane begins a series of absolutely maniacal stunts right over the ring. Loop-the-loops, fallin' leafs, barrel rolls, nose dives, tail spins, flyin' upside down and dizzy side slips that soon had a steady roar of "Oh's!" and "Ah's!" comin' from the crowd, every face of which was now turned upward. Knockout Ford's handlers stared gapin'ly into the sky, but Ford and his manager was grinnin' from ear to ear into my horrified face, because they knew who was the passenger in that plane and so did I!
At last the plane swoops down and comes to a landin' in a clear space over by the dressin' rooms, me and Ptomaine reachin' it whilst the propeller was still whirlin' to a stop. Ptomaine bellers like a angry bull when he sees Kid Roberts, chalk-faced and limp, strapped to the passenger's seat, but I was past bellerin' as I rushed to the Kid's side and begin to unstrap him. The aviator, a burly giant, starts to climb out with a sneerin' grin which instantly left his face like magic. Ptomaine's iron fist, with two hundred pounds of ragin' bone and muscle behind it, caught him flush on the chin and he crashed against the side of his machine to drop to the turf as if struck by lightnin'! For that, I reached in my pocket and crammed Ptomaine's five-hundred-buck "fine" back in his willin' hands. We half lifted the dazed Kid Roberts out of his seat and got him through a swiftly growin' astonished mob into his dressin' room, where he fell on the rubbin' table and panted for breath like a freshly hooked trout.
"Go out and tell the promoter and the newspaper guys to come in here right away!" I say to Ptomaine. "We got to postpone this fight! We can't—"
"Nonsense—I'm all right!" butts in the Kid, gaspin'ly. "That flyer must have gone crazy. Joe! He"
I shut him off to tell him quickly all "Honest-Dollar" Reilly had spilled in my ears and you never in your life seen a guy do a snap-in like Kid Roberts done when I got through! The newspapers panned me to a fare-thee-well for lettin' the Kid go in there in the shape he was in, but I simply couldn't stop the boy. He was a ravin' maniac which wanted Knockout Ford's heart, what I mean!
The thunderin' cheer which greeted Kid Roberts as he reached the ring a half hour later immediately give way to a groan as he staggered and almost fell tryin' to climb through the ropes. His eyes was red-rimmed and smartin' from them Kleig lights and Myrtle Magnificent's "lotion," he's still sick and sufferin' from that wild ride through the clouds, but his jaw is set hard, his head up, and his gamester's heart pumpin' fightin' blood through his powerful body! When they come together for the referee's instructions in the middle of the ring, Knockout Ford sized the shaky Kid up and licked his lips expectantly. The big crowd, lookin' for a quick, spectacular finish, sat quiet and tense. I had the towel ready to toss in early, seein' our championship hopes gone glimmerin', It was a wake in our corner, no foolin'!
At the bell, Knockout Ford was across the ring like a streak, catchin' Kid Roberts in his own corner with a straight left which rocked the Kid's head and brung ithe first of a cloudburst of yells from the mob. Again Ford said it with a left and the Kid missed a right cross by a foot. Ford, boxin' confidently and prettily, countered hard with his monotonous left, makin' the Kid look like a sucker for that punch. They clinched and on the break the Kid caught Ford on the ear with a right and followed that with a right and left to the wind, but the blows seemed to lack the old steam. No wonder! Ford felt the Kid's weakness and commenced walkin' in wide open with crushin' lefts and rights to the head and-body. He drove Kid Roberts against the ropes and the screamin' mob to its feet with two terrible uppercuts. The Kid fell into a clinch and the fans hissed Ford for landin' a backhander on the break-away. Ford continued rushin', but Kid Roberts saved himself by clinchin' repeatedly, showin' that the old bean was workin.' They was in a fond embrace in mid-ring at the gong. Ford's round.
Ford continued to force the fightin' in the second, pilin' up points with his long, accurate left to the face and stiff right swings to the body. For a full minute in this round he hit the groggy Kid at will and the crowd razzed him for bein' unable to stop a apparently punch-drunk man. Kid Roberts woke up toward the end of the round and staggered Ford with a right to the chin, but the effort used up all he had and he was takin' it plenty when the bell rung. Ford's round.
At the beginnin' of the third frame, Ford cut the Kid's eye with a right and the gore spattered both of 'em when Kid Roberts desperately clinched. The referee cautioned Ford for some unnecessary rough stuff and Ford held out a apparently apologetic glove to shake the Kid's hand. As Roberts reached out his own glove for it, Ford suddenly hooked his left viciously to the Kid's unprotected jaw, sendin' him to his knees.
The mob yelled murder and so did I, but before the hesitatin' referee could act, the Kid's up without waitin' for a count, tearin' into Ford with lunatical fury. Ford kept his head, though, and held the Kid off with jarrin' lefts to his damaged eye. That optic was soon closed tight, givin' a further advantage to Ford which already had all the advantage in the world! Kid Roberts took a steady beatin' for the remainder of the round and Ford went to his corner lookin' amazed that he couldn't finish him. The Kid's gameness has broke more than one fighter's heart! Ford's round.
Kid Roberts was out on his feet when he fell on his stool. Ptomaine asked him if he knew what round it was.
"Sure!" says the Kid. "It's the eleventh!"
The fourth round opened with a long clinch, both landin' punishin' blows in close. When the referee got 'em apart, Ford begin jabbin' the Kid's burn glim where he left off before and he didn't seem able to miss it! Kid Roberts, fightin' on his heart alone, swung wildly and often, once fallin' full length to the canvas when he overreached himself in tryin' to land 'a haymaker. Ford was now makin' a choppin' block out of him! A right to the ribs made the Kid wince and Ford followed that with two smashes to the head that had Kid Roberts reelin' around the ring like a drunk and some of the crowd hollerin': "Stop it!" The Kid must of heard that, because he looked over Ford's shoulder at me and shook his head vigorously: "No!" He would of croaked me had I ever throwed in that towel for him whilst he was a boxer! Ford floored the Kid with a straight left just before the end of this round and Roberts was takin' a count when the bell rung. Ford's round.
Knockout Ford looked worried when he come out for the fifth. He'd hit Kid Roberts with all he had in stock, punched him from pillar to post and twice dropped him—yet there was the Kid still on his feet and tryin'! Not so good! The crowd was now with Kid Roberts almost to a man, as they always are with a gamester, win or lose! For the first time Ford begin missin' with his deadly straight left and seemed uncertain on his plan of battle, whilst the Kid was gettin' stronger every minute. He clipped Ford with a long overhand right to the head and sunk both gloves wristdeep to the wind as Ford tried to clinch. Ford begin back pedalin' and the crowd yelled for him to fight. The Kid shot a hard left and right to his face, the right openin' a deep gash in Ford's cheek and Mr. Ford covered up and waited. "Go on, lead, you big tramp!" howls the crowd at him, and a newspaper guy says to me disgustedly: "I got fifty bucks on Ford, but I hope Kid Roberts murders the big yellow hound. If he had half the Kid's heart, we'd been home long ago!"
Spurred on by the jeers of the mob, Ford half-heartedly led with his left, but the Kid wasn't there. He feinted with his right and Kid Roberts smashed him on the mouth with a left and then down below with a right. Oh, that crowd—I can hear 'em yet! It was Ford which was now clinchin' for his life at every chance, and when he staggered to his corner at the end of the round his face was a red blur. The house never let up hollerin' durin' the rest and for the first time since the thing started, Kid Roberts is grinnin' at me and Ptomaine. Kid Roberts's round.
"Boys," he pants, "this fellow doesn't like it!"
"I'll give him four more rounds and 'at's all!" says Ptomaine gleefully, massagin' the Kid's heavin' stomach.
"I'll give him three!" says Jimmy de Long, workin' on the Kid's neck.
"I'll give him two!" I chimes in, with the ammonia under my boy's nose.
"And I'll give him one!" says the Kid, his one good eye glitterin'. A fightin' fool, what?
Both come up fairly fresh for the sixth. Ford tried his old reliable left again, but was short when the Kid rolled his head with the punch and Ford took a right cross to the jaw in return that staggered him. He got inside the Kid's next lead and clinched, wrestlin' Roberts all over the ring, till the Kid shook him off and plastered him with rights and lefts to the jaw that put the attendance insane! Ford rallied and shot a left hook to the heart and the Kid laughed a bloody chuckle at him. Then they stood shoulder to shoulder and tossed terrific rights and lefts into each other's mid-section, till Ford give ground with a appealin' look at his corner. The Kid ducked a left and right and countered with two of the same that didn't do Ford a bit of good. A short clinch followed, broke up by the gong. Kid Roberts's round.
As it stood now, Ford had took four rounds to the Kid's two, but the Kid was gettin' fresher, whilst Ford seemed to of shot his bolt and was arm-weary and disheartened. His seconds worked frantically over him in his corner and his manager poured a stream of advice in his ringin' ears. Around the ring the odds shifted to 13 to 5 on Roberts and I thought of them sure-thing gamblers and laughed out loud.
The end arrived with startlin' suddenness. Both came out kind of weary for Round Seven. They danced cautionsly about each other till the crowd got loudly impatient and bawled for action. They certainly got service! Ford led a straight left. Kid Roberts ducked the blow and countered wickedly to Ford's head. Ford again tried his left, landin' heavily on the Kid's neck, but almost at the same instant the Kid shot a right to the chin. That punch licked Knockout Ford. It dazed him badly and before he could cover up, Kid Roberts whipped a torrid right uppercut to his jaw. Ford reeled for a split second and then fell like a log to the canvas, where he was counted out without the flicker of a muscle!
Thus endeth the seventh lesson and only Fred Fleming and Bob Young stood between us and the heavyweight championship of the world!