Page:The Leather Pushers (1921).pdf/59

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a dinge middleweight I had hired for two bucks to help handle him. The mob give the Kid a mild greetin', and then down the aisle, through the haze of smoke, comes what I thought at first was Washington's Monument with a bath robe on. It turned out to be nothin' less than Special Delivery Kelly, which Kid Roberts is soon gonna be versus. The second the customers piped him I thought the roof of the clubhouse was comin' off, and for all I know it did! Everybody in the joint, includin' a leather-lunged delegation of honest hearts and willin' hands from the boiler works, climbs up on their chairs and lets forth three hundred rousin' cheers for Monsieur Kelly, which said gent acknowledges by several noncommittal short bobs of his bullet head and a coupla ferocious scowls at our corner. If this cuckoo wasn't a yard over six foot, then I'm the next king of France, and his weight was announced at a triflin' 240. I heaved a sigh of relief when I heard that. I had him figured at about 940! His hair was shaved down close to the temple of knowledge on top of his neck like he had not five minutes ago completed a course in Sing Sing, and what I take it for granted was his face give him the startlin' appearance of a guy which had devoted the best part of his life to fightin' buzz saws with it. The top of one ear was elsewhere. Oh, Special Delivery Kelly was one tough-lookin' young man, I'll inform the hemispheres!

"Good Lord—what a beast!" gasps the Kid after one flash. "He looks like a gorilla!"

I says nothin', but my personal idea was that, alongside of Kelly, a gorilla would look like a chorus girl.