that I had beating up the best men outside of it, I’d be wearing black pearls and heliotrope silk socks to-day.
“One evening I was walking along near the Bowery, thinking about things, when along comes a slumming-party. About six or seven they was, all in swallowtails, and these silk hats that don’t shine. One of the gang kind of shoves me off the sidewalk. I hadn’t had a scrap in three days, and I just says, ‘De-lighted!’ and hits him back of the ear.
“Well, we had it. That Johnnie put up as decent a little fight as you’d want to see in the moving pictures. It was on a side street, and no cops around. The other guy had a lot of science, but it only took me about six minutes to lay him out.
“Some of the swallowtails dragged him up against some steps and began to fan him. Another one of ’em comes over to me and says:
“‘Young man, do you know what you’ve done?’
“‘Oh, beat it,’ says I. ‘I’ve done nothing but a little punching-bag work. Take Freddy back to Yale and tell him to quit studying sociology on the wrong side of the sidewalk.’
“‘My good fellow,’ says he, ‘I don’t know
