The Leather Pushers (1921, G. P. Putnam's Sons)/Round 4
The average admirer of the manly art of aggravated assault has the idea that a prize fighter's manager is the gent the leather pusher has got to give half his wages to, which sits in his meal ticket's corner bawlin' him out every time the other young man clouts him earnestly on the features—and that's about all. Nothin', outside of the Arabian Nights, could be farther from the facts. A first-class pilot is to a box fighter what a race track is to a jockey—he's got to have one or he don't get nowheres. There is no doubt whole coveys of boxin' impresarios which is little more than towel wavers and nickel hiders, but a real, Big Time manager of pugs hustles harder for his pennies than a bill poster on a windy day. He's got to have the conscience of a loan shark, the shrewdness of Shylock's old man, the nerve of a blind tightrope walker, the imagination of the guy which invented boardin'-house hash, and the optimism of a salesman startin' through Hades with a line of celluloid collars. He's got to be press agent, trainer, banker, adviser, valet, pal, and keeper for some bullnecked mauler, which nine and three-fifths times outa ten presents him with the raspberry the instant he graduates from the preliminaries.
Many a tenth-rate scrapper has copped fame and fortune through the efforts of a brainy pilot, and many a champ has lost both through the coarse work of a poor one. Again, they ain't a dozen cases on the books where a fighter tried to manage himself and was a success of it. One bright and shinin' example of this is Monsieur Jessica Willard, the martyr of Toledo, which might of lasted a few more seconds before the ferocious Dempsey if he'd had shrewd and experienced handlin' from his corner.
Popularity with the mob is what brings home the sugar in professional boxin' the same as in professional anything. Jim Coffey shook a mean controller on the front end of a New York street car before he seen a picture of Peter Maher and decided he was a sucker to work for a coupla bucks a day when he could put on half a bathin' suit, knock a lot of Englishmen cold, and get from one to five thousand berries for doin' it. Coffey was rechristened "the Fighting Trish Motorman," and every time he started against some set-up they had to call out the reserves to keep the motormen and conductors from tearin' the clubhouse down to see their ex-colleague perform. In a few months Coffey cleaned up a fortune. Frank Moran gets paid in thousands for his work because he can and usually does take a terrific lacin' with a wide grin on his face and a runnin' fire of wise cracks for the ringsiders. Al McCoy, when middleweight champ, was prob'ly the least popular fighter which ever wore a crown, yet he got large dough for his services because he jammed the clubhouse with thousands of fans which wildly hated him and come for the sole purpose of seein' him knocked dead! I could name a hundred other scrappers which got a Big Time hearin' purely on a managerial-created personality.
Success is a high-powered drink which has flattened as many guys as booze ever did—you gotta know how to handle it or it'll throw you, as sure as the Atlantic is inclined to be damp! What keeps plenty of room for newcomers at the top of the ladder of fame is the fact that simple carelessness is continually forcin' guys that's reached there to slide off. In our case poor judgment and too much ambition caused us to drop back in the heap just when it looked like not even the champ could stop us.
This one-round knockout by Kennedy before a metropolitan jury ruined all my hard work in makin' Kid Roberts a drawin' card in the Big Town, and set us back at least a year—as I thought at the time. Here's a burg where you can get anything in the world with the slight exception of sympathy, where every guy which lands at the Battery with a dialect, a secretary, and four trunks is gave the freedom of the city and a chance to rent Carnegie Hall, whilst a possible future Carnegie, with nothin' but the dialect, is sent to Ellis Island so's he can appreciate what a democracy means at the go in.
The bank roll was shot to pieces, three or four important and exceedin'ly profitable bouts had been canceled, and takin' it by and large, our prospects looked as bright as a guy's which has just finished a course in bartendin'. There was only one way we could come back quick, and that was to get a return scrap with Kennedy and knock him dead, a thing that to my untutored mind looked 99 per cent impossible. In the first place, the hardest fight in a box-fighter's career is his first quarrel after he's been knocked out. You generally pick nothin' but tramps for him all over again, gradually gettin' his confidence back—but to rush a green kid right in again against the baby that's flattened him is absolutely idiotic, nine times outa ten. If your boy's a champ, or you got a agreement with the other guy, it's different. I had neither a champ or a agreement.
So, as I looked across our room at the Kid pacin' up and down like the inmate of the panther's cage at the zoo, I decided it was us back to the bushes again for a space, battlin' bums and sellin' tickets for the battles on a commission in the lew of a guaranteed purse.
"Well, Kid," I says fin'ly, "drag out the old suit case and we'll vamp away for the sticks. We gotta start all over again, several feet below the bottom, and jab our way back to where we was when you fell into that wallop from Kennedy. It's tough, but—"
He swung around on me like a flash. "What do you mean?" he says. "I thought you had secured me a return bout with Al Kennedy?"
Pretty good for the Kid, hey? Wantin' to step right out again with the first guy which had knocked him for a goal. The boy had heart, what?
"I had matched you with Kennedy again," I says, "but said bout is all off now!"
"He crawled out of it, eh?" he snarls, bangin' his fist down on the bureau. "Robbed me of my chance to win back the—"
"No," I interrupts, "he didn't crawl out of it. Nothin' would of gave Monsieur Kennedy greater delight than havin' you as his guest in the middle of a twenty-four-foot ring! I'm the baby that crabbed the thing, and it hurt me more than it does you, because we was to drag down six hundred fish for that mêlée, and the only way we can make six hundred dollars right now is to steal a counterfeitin' layout somewheres!".
"Then why the devil did you cancel that bout?" he roars, advancin' on me with a four-alarm fire in each eye. "Is this a crude preliminary to your tellin' me you're ready to' quit me because I've been knocked out?"
The Kid was towerin' over me, his fine chin shoved out at a fightin' angle, and that bone-crushin' right dyin' with impatience to land on my jaw. I stood up, put my hands in my pockets and looked him over quietly.
"Listen!" I says. "I never quit anything or anybody in my life; that's why I'm broke—which shows the copy books is all wrong! I'll tell you why I called off your return quarrel with Al Kennedy, and if you laugh at me whilst I'm tellin' it I'll take a clout at you myself. It was maniacal on my part to listen to you before and send you in against a guy as tough as that, instead of waitin' till you had a few more real battles under your belt, and I been sore at myself for doin' it ever since. You and me was raised in different hothouses, Kid—the nearest I ever been to college was the time I went up to New Haven to go behind Young Evans when he fought K. O. Hinds. I passed Yale on the ways to the clubhouse. So I know your idea of a box-fighter's manager is a guy which would frame his brother for a dollar-fifty, set fire to a orphan asylum just to be nasty, and rob a blind cripple for want of somethin' to do. Well, here's where the big laugh comes. Strange as it may seem, I like you, you big stiff, and I'm not gonna let you go in and get your head punched off, when I know you ain't got a chance of winnin', for a few dirty dollars! I need my bit of the six hundred men we was guaranteed to fight Kennedy the same as you do, but I ain't gonna take it for you gettin' beat up. We'll go broke together and battle our way back. Now if you wanna clout me, go to it!"
The Kid's face was a movie durin' the time I was talkin' and them big hands which was to make him a mint full of kopeks slowly fell at his sides. Then one of 'em shot up and grabbed mine till they must of heard me yell in Siberia.
"I'm all wrong!" he says with that flashin' kid grin of his. "It seems to me, old man, that I should prepare a lot of apologies and present them to you at once; it would save a lot of time. I think I'll rechristen you Gunga Din, for at times there appears to be no question but that you're a better man than I am!"
"Say, listen!" I says, tickled silly that the boy was himself again. "Lay off that Gunga Din stuff. I'm a manager, not a water-bucket holder!"
The Kid's grin widens. "Now that the airy persiflage has been disposed of," he says, grabbin' my hand again, "please believe that I value your friendship as much as I do your—er—managerial ability, and, whatever my fortunes may be, I'll never forget either. I am thoroughly convinced now that you had my best interests at heart when you canceled that Kennedy return bout."
"That's fine!" I says, lettin' forth several sighs of relief. "And now that we got that all settled, we—"
"But," he goes on, "I'm afraid you'll have to wire for a new contract, because my next bout will be with Al Kennedy if I have to pick a quarrel with him in the street!"
I let out a yell and collapsed on the bed. This baby was past me!
"Yes," he continues coldly, sittin' on the arm of a chair and borin' me with them steel-gray eyes of his. "I'm going to fight Kennedy again before I meet anyone else, and I'm fit enough to step into the ring with him to-night. I will not go back! I've set a goal for myself, and I may be forced out of the game altogether, but I'll never return to beating up those poor, unfortunate brutes for a few dollars a fight. Those things are not boxing bouts; they're exhibitions of bestial brutality that would have warmed the cockles of Nero's heart! No more of them for me, and that's final! I'm going ahead, not backward, old man, and a win over Kennedy means a step forward—a bout with the next man higher up to the champion. If Kennedy whips me again, I'll quit the ring and try my hand at something else; but he's got to whip me, first? You wire for a bout on any terms—I'll fight him for nothing if there's no other way. Why, the prestige of a victory over him would be worth it!"
Whilst I'm still in a trance he walks over and picks up his hat, gives himself a swift dollin' up before the mirror, and turns to the door.
"I'm going down and get a magazine," he says. "I'll be back shortly. You'd better file that wire at once—or I will!"
"But look here, you boob!" I hollers, jumpin' up. "We have—"
"Get me Kennedy!" he snaps, and slams the door.
I sit there lookin' at said door for the worst part of five minutes. Then I reached in my pocket and pulled out a little billet-doux I had not showed Kid Roberts. It was a answer to my telegram cancelin' the fight with Kennedy, and the words and music went like this:
Will raise ante to $750 no higher, six rounds Kennedy. Don't try to Jesse James us. Wire if O. K.
I must of read that novel over about forty times. Then I got up, swore what is frequently called a round oath, kicked over a innocent waste-basket, went to the phone, and wired the Albion A. C. approval to the assassination in cold blood of the whitest guy which ever rubbed a shoe in rosin—i. e., Kid Roberts!
Down in the lobby I found everybody in the world, with the slight exception of Kid Roberts. Over to a side was one of them classy tea rooms where you really gotta drink tea now, unless you're a old customer which has been a steady patron for a few hours at the least. It's jammed as the subway at 6 p. m., with ladies which is supposed to be havin' a tough day shoppin'; tired business men which trusts they ain't recognized, but if they are what of it; young girls which should be goin' to school and are, but don't know it yet, and young guys which toils not neither do they spin, on account of bein' able to shake a nasty hoof. Everybody is dancin' hither and you to the soft strains of a jazz band which would get throwed out of a boiler factory for makin' too much noise.
In the midst of the above, I discover' Kid Roberts.
The boy is steppin' out with a Jane which the only thing I can tell about her from where I stand is that she's got black hair and a lot of it, but when the music had mercy and laid off and by dumb luck they come to a halt opposite me, I seen that was only one of the young lady's various charms. She's one of them medium height, curvin' knockouts which would prob'ly of made a bigger boob outa Marc Anthony than Cleo did, inside of five minutes. Also, she had a couple of eyes which would attract a crowd even if set in a scarfpin, and she had found out that they was more things could be done with 'em than merely gazin' straight ahead. Even though a experienced spectator could see her complexion come in a can, she had made a beaucoup job of it. But the expression in them starry orbs I spoke about reminded me of a boss poker player's when he's considerin' standin' a raise.
"Lookin' for me?" says the Kid pleasantly, seein' me.
"Yeh," I nods, givin' the young lady a brief glance.
"Pardon me, Miss Murray," he says, with a drawin'-room bow, "I won't be a moment, and then we'll finish our dance. Oh, let me introduce my friend, Mister—"
"Pleased t'meetcha!" butts in the charmin' young damsel, with what she no doubt thought was a killin' smile. "Never mind the rest—I kin never remember names anyways. Do you dance?"
"I was a assistant at St. Vitus Academy for years," I says, with a bewitchin' grin.
"Oh, a kidder, hey?" she comes back. Then turnin' to the Kid: "Well go ahead and see what your friend wants—if you make it snappy, I'll wait."
The Kid bows again, I don't, and we start for the elevator.
"Do you expect to lick Kennedy by trainin' in a jazzery with a dime for a sparrin' partner?" I snarls, kinda sore. "What's the idea?"
He smiles. But it's a nervous grin—there seems to be somethin' on his mind.
"I was standing in the lobby," he tells me, "and I heard them playing a waltz in there. It was one of those soft, dreamy, Mendellsohny things that brought with it visions of Newport, Tuxedo, Aiken—oh, all that used to be. I went over merely to listen—to close my eyes and fancy myself again a— However, I met Mabel—eh—Miss Murray, quite unconventionally—delightfully so. I simply respectfully asked permission to dance with her, introducing myself, before I thought, as Kane Halliday. You see, I was carried away by the spell of my imaginings and forgot that I am temporarily Kid Roberts, a pugilist. Unfortunately the lady had no sooner granted my idiotic request when the orchestra swung into that infernal din—jazz, I believe they call it—and I, of course, had to go through with it."
"It didn't seem to be causin' you no pain when I flashed you," I snorts. "Who the—who is this Mabel?"
"Miss Murray is in charge of the cigar counter," says the Kid. "She is a charming girl, all the more so for her naïve inconventionality. I like her immensely, and if you in any way intimate to her that I am a prize fighter, I think I shall murder you."
"Well," I remarks, "all I can say is that you are a pig for punishment with the regard to the ladies, Kid, and that's that! Go to it—this mere regular monthly romance of yours will only last a week or so at the most and then—"
"This girl is different!" snaps the Kid. "There's no pretense, no affectation about her. Her frankness—"
"Oh, all right, go ahead," I butts in, as we step outa the elevator. "As long as you don't claim she understands you and the etc., I guess it ain't fatal yet!"
As soon as we're in the room I breaks the glad tidin's: "I have got Kennedy again for you as per your instructions. We fight him six rounds or less in Philly, two weeks from to-morrow, for the modest stipend of $750, come what may. Now, Kid, you gotta train hard for this baby and—"
"I'm ready to step into the ring right now!" he cuts me off impatiently. "I'll start light training to-morrow—at present I need relaxation. Lord, that girl will think I've been kidnaped. Back in an hour!" and he's outa the door.
What could you do with a kid like that?
From then until the night we rolled up to the jammed and howlin' clubhouse in sweet old Philly, Kid Roberts and the fair Mabel was constant playfellows. By hangin' onto him like a cold in the head I had him train hard and faithfully every day, but in the evenin' by the moonlight and the etc it was all different and all Mabel. Sweet Mamma, how he did fall for that Jane! She had him layin' down and rollin' over every time she snapped her fingers, and alongside of the flowers, candy, and dinners he bought her, the Follies chorus would think they was neglected. Every time a member of the less deadly sex purchased a cigar from Mabel's stand whilst the Kid was in the offin', Roberts glared at him like he was gonna bite him, and it fin'ly got so that the both of 'em was the talk of the lobby.
Still and all, I did not care for Mademoiselle Murray. To me she wasn't the Kid's kind. Let him be a pug for the time bein' or not, he was nevertheless Kane Halliday to me—a nice, big, clean kid. I freely admit that Mabel was a très bien looker and all that, but she was too wise for the boy, and I was afraid he wouldn't find that out until when he did it would hurt. I had gave him my word that I wouldn't tell her his present trade and that let me out, but it didn't prevent me from wishin' to Heavens that somethin' would bust up these bills and coos before they was nothin' left but the bills!
We had to practically clout our ways into the clubhouse and call on the assistance of the coppers to get to the dressin' room, where we found some Philly newspaper guys waitin' for us. I had let the fancy auto, valet, mask, and all the other bunk go by the board this time, because that was killed when Kennedy knocked the Kid out in one round the first time they met. You gotta be new all the time in the fight game, the same as in anything else, to get more than a passin' glance from the mob. Now that it was known that Kid Roberts was really Kane Halliday, the once famous Yale football and etc star, he was a bigger sensation than ever, and the sport writers was gathered around us to get a story about him for their papers.
After they have interviewed the Kid silly whilst he's gettin' into his workin' togs, one of these guys says to him:
"Kid, we're all with you and we wanna see you knock this guy for a goal, so I'm gonna slip you a few tips that may be useful when you're in there tryin', Kennedy is as foul a fighter as ever heeled a man with his glove, and he likewise swings a nasty tongue in the clinches. He's got you figured for a set-up because he flattened you before and he's set to make a show out of you to-night. Keep your head and pay no attention to his sarcastic remarks—Just tie in and he'll wilt! But be careful, because this baby will try every trick known to the game."
"Yes?" butts in the Kid, lookin' up from the table where the handlers is massagin' him. "Well, watch me! I'll be so rough with Mister Kennedy that after to-night the sight of a boxing glove will make him ill for a month. For every trick he tries on me, I'll go him one better. This is one fellow I want to knock out and I'll lick him at his own game!"
Wow!
On the square, I could scarcely believe my own ears. I had never heard the Kid pull any stuff like this before since I'd had him. Usually he was as nervous as a two-year-old at the post—pale, tremblin', and lickin' his lips till if you didn't know him you'd think he was yellah. Now he laid there grinnin' and kiddin' with the handlers, the most cool and collected guy in the clubhouse. All I was afraid of was that he was kiddin' himself with this stuff and might collapse on me or somethin' when I got him into the ring—I seen that happen many's the time before with other guys. But—well, wait!
When we pushed and milled down the aisle to the ring it seemed to me that, if all the guys which was packed in there had voted against prohibition, it would be a felony to-day to call for a glass of water! They had a rule against smokin', and as a result the smoke was so thick we got all the sensations of a fireman on that brief trip to the battle ground. Kennedy and his handlers had already started down from the opposite direction, and the yell which went up from them lunatics all around us was just one continuous roar, in which it was impossible to pick out any words—nothin' but plain sound, that's all. This here demonstration was neither for Roberts or Kennedy, particularly. It was caused by the same thing which makes the lions in the zoo beller when the keepers start in with the meat.
There was little time wasted in stallin' around, and five minutes after the men entered the ring they was standin' together in the center, gettin' their instructions. Then come the first real thrill—for me, anyways!
When the referee gets through with his monologue about not hittin' on the breakaways, and the like, Kennedy reaches over suddenly and grabs Kid Roberts by the wrist, jerkin' the arm down hard. A old stunt of gettin' a fighter's goat, right on the verge of the openin' bell.
"I'll make you yell for the cops, you bum!" he snarls. "I knocked you in a round before—well, to-night I'm gonna make you stay and like it. I'll cut you to pieces, you pink-cheeked quitter!"
Quick as a flash, the Kid shoots up his left hand, and with the heel of the glove rubs Kennedy's hair all over his bullet head, mussin' it up.
"Shut up, you big stiff!" he comes back. "When they cart you away from here in a couple of minutes, you'll have to go back driving a truck!"
Sweet Papa—I could of kissed him!
Kennedy jumped back with a surprised grunt, and the amazed referee pushes 'em apart. The crowd, seenin' this unusual byplay, rocked the buildin', and the din was so terrible I don't believe six guys heard the bell.
Kennedy come out with a rush, and the Kid brought him up short with a beautiful left uppercut that almost tore his head off. They mixed like a coupla wildcats in the middle of the ring, neither havin' a advantage and both fightin' at a pace that meant curtains in short order for somebody. The referee split 'em up, and on the break Kennedy swung a vicious right that missed by inches, for which he was warned by the referee and hissed by the howlin' mob. The Kid grinned and put a left and right to the head, but a instant later Kennedy staggered him with a wicked chop to the jaw and a overhand right to the face that opened up a old cut under the Kid's eye. The gore blinded him, and Kennedy roughed him to the ropes, workin' both hands to the body and face like a madman. It looked bad for the Kid, and the crowd went hysterical when Roberts suddenly straightened up and drove Kennedy back on his heels with two short chops to the jaw and a right and left uppercut to the same place. Kennedy looked scared and begin to tin-can around the ring with the Kid chasin' him and tryin' desperately to polish him off. He fin'ly pinned him in a neutral corner and they stood toe to toe and slugged till they wasn't a guy in the clubhouse with any voice or sense left. It was a cinch one of 'em must flop, and Kennedy was the first one to go. He pitched forward on his face, took a count of "nine," and come up a sorry-lookin' sight. One eye was closed, and the rest of his face was a crimson blur. He tried to dive into a clinch, but the Kid shook him off and sprawled him in a heap with a terrific right to the jaw. The referee had reached "eight" without a flicker of a muscle from Kennedy, when the bell rung.
Kid Roberts skipped to his corner grinnin' like a schoolboy on Xmas mornin' and wavin' a glove at the frenzied crowd. Outside of the cut under one eye, which I paid a lot of attention to durin' the rest, there wasn't a mark on him.
"I've got him!" he pants, whilst I'm dousin' him with water. "He'll never last out the next round!"
"Shut up, don't talk!" I growls. "Save your wind. They ain't never out till they're counted out!"
Kennedy was slow in gettin' off his stool for the second frame and the Kid met him before he was out of his own corner with a smash under the heart that hung him over the ropes, where he covered up and waited for it. But the Kid stepped away, payin' no attention to the groans of the mob, and Kennedy suddenly jabbed his left to the face, fallin' in and clinchin' with the punch. I couldn't figure the move till I seen his knee come up with a jerk and then I shrieked—but it was too late. That big stiff's bony kneecap caught the Kid in the pit of the stomach, and Roberts slid slowly to the floor, gaspin', his face twisted in the agony of the lowest foul known to the prize ring. That, of course, was Kennedy's game—to cripple the boy. He'd had enough, and he wanted to lose on a foul rather than be knocked out. He'd made no attempt to conceal the thing, which was plain to every one of the wildly yelpin' customers. The referee waved Kennedy to his corner, and me and my merry men jumped into the ring and ran to the Kid, which was now sittin' up and bitin' his lips till they was a thin red stream tricklin' down his drawn face, but the look in his eyes, fastened on Kennedy, was terrible to see. We helped him up and started to half carry him to his corner, but he pushed us away and braced himself against the ropes, seemin'ly gettin' stronger every second. That kid's vitality was remarkable! The referee held up his hand and gradually the noise died down.
"Gentlemen!" he says, "I award this bout to Kid Roberts on a foul and—"
The rest was lost in the uproar, but the Kid grabs the referee's arm. "Don't award me anything," he gasps. "I want to knock that dog out. Let the fight go on—I'm all right!"
The referee's eyes come near partin' forever with his head.
"You're crazy, son!" he grunts. Then, turnin' to me: "Hey, you better look after your man. Is there a doctor in—"
Kid Roberts breaks away from him and walks to the center of the ring, holdin' up both hands and like magic the yells dies away again.
"Gentlemen," says the Kid, slowly and painfully, "you came here to witness a boxing exhibition, and unfortunately it has been interrupted. I am perfectly willing and able to continue, and that's what I want to do! The referee says I've been fouled—that's correct. But I'm not badly hurt and if I'm willing to take a chance, why shouldn't he?"
Sweet Mamma—you should of heard them babies out in front then!
So many things come off in such sensationally quick succession after that that it's hard to get 'em in order. I tried to drag the Kid to his corner and got shoved half-way through the ropes. The mob surged back and forth yellin' for the fight to go on, and in Kennedy's corner they took up the shout. They was only too anxious now. Their man had got a rest, and the Kid was plainly all in. Here was a chance to turn defeat into a certain knockout for Kennedy. The referee hesitated, looked out at the crowd, shook his head, and fin'ly threw up his hands and walked to the ropes. Somebody rung the bell, and, like a flash, Kennedy was off his stool, plungin' at the Kid, which turned to meet him with a twisted grin. The referee hollered and started between 'em, caught the growl of ten thousand animals, shrugged his shoulders, and stepped away. And then they were at it again like wild men!
A fight, what?
The first solid wallop the Kid landed showed Kennedy what a simp he was to think Roberts was the same as out. It broke his nose and made him a study in red from chin to hips. He began back-pedalin' again, but the Kid gave him no chance. He punched him from pillar to post, from one side of the ring to the other. He hit him with every blow known to boxin', and inside of a minute had him flounderin' blindly about the ring, drunk with punishment. A hurricane of left and right hooks almost knocked Kennedy through the ropes, and swish—a sponge came hurtlin' into the ring from his corner. It rolled to the edge of the platform, quivered there a minute, and then the blazin'-eyed referee with a flick of his heel sent it spinnin' down on the reporters.
"Fight, you yellah bum!" he roars in Kennedy's battered ear. "You wanted it; now take it!"
Kennedy, seein' they was no way out of it, staggered forward and swung wildly with both hands. The Kid laughed out loud, measured him with his left, and floored him with a right cross to the button of the jaw. Kennedy, glassy-eyed, rolled over on his back at "six," gazed up at the Kid he had tried to maim for life a few minutes back, and waved a weak hand.
"I—got—enough!" he pants and quit like a dog!
Then, with a happy smile on his lips, Kid Roberts slid through my arms to the canvas in a dead faint.
It was three or four days after we got back to New York again before I had the pleasure of viewin' Miss Mabel Murray, the fascinatin' cigar seller. I went over to the stand to buy a paper, and she presented me with a killin' smile, callin' me up to her end of the counter with a charmin'ly intimate nod. "Say!" she says. "That bird Halliday must of figured I just got shipped in here from Hensfoot Corners or somethin', didn't he?"
"Why?" I says, with the greatest of interest.
"Well," she says, confidentially, "I'll tell you. Y'know, if I do say it myself, there's worse lookers than me, and I gotta stand for a lotta kiddin' duri' the hours I put in here every day sellin' these here Roperinos to the male's sex. I get four-fiushed to death from 8 a. m. to 5 p. m. daily except Sunday, by everything from travelin' salesmen to risin' young bill clerks, which can't control their generosity and crave my company at lunch and so forth. Accordin' to them, they're all millionaires' sons in disguise or black sheeps of grand old families, and none of 'em makes less than $5,000 a week, not countin' tips. Of course all this goes in one ear and out another with me, but I thought this Halliday was different. He's such a good looker, his manners would make a head waiter look like a stevedore, and his language—well, half the time I didn't even know what he was talkin' about! I admit I was on the verge of fallin' for him— Mother mine, how he can dance! But I found out yesterday I'd been bunked again."
"I don't make you, kid," I says. "What did the boy do?"
She leans over and grins.
"Say," she says. "It's a scream! He comes over here very serious and says he's got somethin' important to tell me—somethin' I gotta know before our friendship can go any farther, get me? Of course I had him pegged from the go in for what he is—one of them tea-room boys which will stop at nothin' but work! Naturally, I figured he was about to make a touch. What d'ye think he told me?"
"Shoot!" I says. "I never win a guess in my life."
She leans back and busts right out laughin'.
"He claims he's Kid Roberts, the prize fighter," she chortles. "That bird a fighter! Say, if anybody ever threatened to wallop him, he'd pass away in a swoon! How is it that none of you guys can ever tell a woman the truth?"