The Leather Pushers (1921, G. P. Putnam's Sons)/Round 8
Amongst the various gents which baffles the almshouse by the via of boxin', there is one baby which is seldom the hero of any prize-ring movies, plays, or novels, yet this guy is as important to the box fighter as his arms. I refer to the coatless, shirtless, hoarse, and perspirin' custodian of the water bucket, sponge, and towels, the Gunga Din of fistiana, i. e., the second or "handler."
From the time the jovial David knocked the genial Goliath for a goal, pugilistic history is dotted with the names of famous seconds whose shrewdness, swift thinkin', imagination, and remarkable knowledge of ring craft has saved many's the totterin' champ from a violent and sudden partin' with his title. Again, poor advice at a critical minute from a excited handler has sent scores of inexperienced young scrappers rushin' off their stools into a knockout, when skillful instructions might of landed them home a sensational winner. The next time you go to a professional aggravated assault and battery séance and get sick of watchin' a couple of them tired business men cuffin' each other, shift a eye over to their corners and watch their handlers work. The ones which jumps up and down beside the ropes, shuttin' off the view of guys which has sent in from five to twenty berries for a look, and keeps up a continued screechin' of: "Go on, kid, knock him kickin'!" "Bring up the left, you saphead! Bring it up!" "Kill the big tramp!" and the etc., is as big a handicap to their man as tonsillitis would be to Galli-Curci. When the fighter can hear their bellers at all over the roar of the gorehungry mob, it irritates and confuses him, especially when one of his seconds is yellin' for him to shoot his left and another is bawlin': "Send in 'at right!"
That type of second don't mean nothin' and is a heavy liability to a scrapper. But the other kind, these babies which has made the handlin' of fighters a science, is worth their weight in rubies, and if paid on the basis of their actual value durin' a tough battle, would get half their man's share of the purse at the least. You seldom see them birds hoppin' hithers and you and shriekin' their heads off whilst their man is in there tryin'. You'll notice they crouch as close to the ropes as the referee will let 'em and when their boy gets puzzled and flicks his head to 'em for advice, they got a intelligent answer to shout him, some crafty move to recommend which usually gets the dazed mauler out of a tough hole.
This gent earns his sugar in the rest between rounds, not whilst his boy is mixin' it up and compelled to give his charmin' opponent his undivided attention. All durin' the round the big-league handler glues his eyes on the fighters and his brain is workin' faster than the pumpin' arms of the pantin' bruisers. He picks out the most glarin' weaknesses of his boy and also those of the other bozo; he gets angles and sees chances to cop quick that the battler can't see whilst he's desperately tryin' to land his haymaker or keep himself from kissin' the canvas. He dumps out his entire bag of tricks, collected in years of "bein' behind" scrappers—champs and tramps. He pulls stuff that just stops at bustin' what rules the game has and frequently even knocks over the traffic sign. For instance, a beller about the other cuckoo's gloves bein' too light and a demand that they be examined. He knows said gloves are O. K., but if he can get away with it, the ensuin' argument with the referee may hold up the fight for even three minutes, enough to give his battered scrapper a chance to recover. When his boy flops on the stool at the end of a hectic frame, watch him pour a continuous cool and unexcited stream of advice into the kid's crimson ear as he bends over him and kneads the quiverin' body muscles. Advice that's the result of expert sizin' up of what's happened in the round just fought: "Don't try to box with this guy, keep sloughin' him all the way. Pound his heart, he don't like 'em there!" or: "Keep this boob movin'; don't let him set—get me? Spar him off this frame. Make him miss and tire him out. We'll knock him dead a little while later. Don't slug with him till I tell you!" and so forth, till the bell sounds and the kid steps out again, freshened up, clear-headed and confident.
I said before that inexperienced seconds is a big handicap to a box fighter. Yet Kid Roberts, licked to a fare-thee-well, sprang from his stool and win a world's championship solely on the account of the two guys which was shakin' the towel in his corner—two guys which had never before in their lives handled a fighter and never did again. Let's go!
After we have bounced the French title holder at Monte Carlo, all the other foreign leather pushers it would have been worth our while to mingle with claimed exemption. The Senator and his eye-soothin' daughter havin' concluded their business abroad, i. e., havin' a whale of a time, is ready to sail for America, and of course the Kid immediately develops a terrible yearnin' for his native heath. So the result was that we all sailed for the Gem of the Ocean together. The Kid and Dolores went into secret conferences on the novel subject of love's young dream, which lasted till we slid past Quarantine and me and the Senator become familiar figures in the smokin' room, talkin' each other silly on subjects from boxin' to bankin' and politics to parcheesi.
Just before we tied up at the dock we all separated so's to fool the ship-news reporters, which surrounded the Senator whilst the camera boys was shootin' the smilin' Dolores from all angles. Three feet away, with his broad back to 'em, stood the Kid, and I kept wonderin' how much the newspaper guys would give to know that the best story they'd fell across in many's the day was right under their noses. Dolores Brewster, society bud, only daughter of millionaire Senator Brewster of New York, engaged to Kid Roberts, heavyweight championship challenger. Woof—Sweet Mamma!
Then a reporter seen the Kid, and in a instant a United States Senator was left flat on his back right in the middle of lettin' forth a opinion on Russia or somethin' equally as enthrallin', whilst the reporters and camera men swooped down on the grinnin' Kid and bombarded him with foolish questions. I stood by beamin' and smirkin' like a mother watchin' her boy wonder recitin' the twelve o'clock ride of Paul Revere to the school board. Then come the jolt!
"Well, Kid," says a sharp-eyed little runt from the "Evenin' Moan," "what are you gonna do about Dynamite Jackson?"
"Prob'ly play him philately," I says, before the Kid can answer. "Who the—eh—who's Dynamite Johnson?"
"Not Johnson," says the reporter. "Jackson—Dynamite Jackson. He's a gentleman of color, and the color ain't white! Whilst you and your man-eater has been frolickin' around Europe, this big dinge has come up from nowheres and made a name for himself around New York. He flattened Tiger Anderson, Bull Kelly, Jim Sewell, and Young Scavelli in one round the each, and he smacked Soldier Martin for a row of shanties last night in just six frames! Whitey Burns, which has the Arena Club in Newark now, stands ready to offer you $55,000 for your end, win, lose, or draw for eight rounds, no decision. Why, say, the mob which will turn out to see this—"
"That's all blah!" I cuts him off. "We never fought no dinge, and we never will!"
"Now look here, fellah!" he snarls, shovin' his sharp little face up to me "this nigger should have his chance. If you duck him, I will personally roast your man to a fare-thee-well, beginnin' with to-morrow's paper. Every white man in this village and in hundreds of others which reads the papers, and has heard of both Kid Roberts and Dynamite Jackson, is hopin' you'll take this high-steppin' dinge and knock him dead. I hope you kill him! But if you don't take him on—"
"Just a moment!" butts in the Kid, which ain't batted a eye durin' all of this. "I'm afraid you're exciting yourself unduly, old man. When I first went into this game, I made up my mind that under no circumstances would I ever step into a ring with a colored man. Never mind my reasons—they're ethical and my own. But your contention is absolutely right. A real champion should bar no one, whether it be a contest of brains or brawn! It is my place as challenger to prove beyond a question of a doubt that I am of championship caliber. Very well, I will meet this negro, as far as I'm concerned—to-morrow night!"
Wam!
"Look here, you guys—" I hollers, whilst the reporters is tryin' to mob the Kid and a little bimbo as large as a chicken and with the same kind of a chest is struttin' around and bellerin' about the undaunted white race to a big fat grinnin' Senegambian porter, "I—"
"Shut up, Stupid!" grunts the reporter from the "Evenin' Moan," "or I'll start a conspiracy to keep your name out of the papers. The Kid's the guy I should of talked to in the first place. How a real fighter ever got tied up with a burglar like you is past me! This boy has got to where he is on sheer courage and his own nut. The first time he takes one syllable of advice from you, he'll become a bum!"
Well, as the French says: "Kappa Delta Omega Tau!" hey?
The Kid didn't fight Dynamite Jackson the next night, but they did crawl through the ropes before either ten or thirty-six thousand maniacs about two weeks later. I'll say this Ethiopium was good! For three rounds he toyed with the cautious Roberts till none of the crowd could speak above a whisper and most of 'em wanted the Kid's life. In Round Four, under my orders, the Kid took off the wraps and murdered all the bugs with weak hearts by droppin' Jackson twice. In Round Five they stalled some more and drawed a hat and program shower from the cuckoos in the gallery. The sixth innin' was a wow! They both come out to end it with a punch, and, boy, it was pretty. Both could hit and both could take it, and that's what happened. This dinge fought like his life depended on every wallop, and right at the bell he connected with a terrific smash to the body that floored the Kid in his own corner. It took some scientific work to bring hin: around, and when he opened his eyes he pushed me away from the reddened side I was anxiously kneadin'. His face was a pasty gray.
"Don't rub that, you ass," he groans through set teeth. "He's broken one of my ribs!"
O sole mio!
I motioned for the referee.
"If you stop this, I'll kill you!" snarls Roberts, and he looked it as he sneers out at the ravin' crowd. "Look at the damn beasts!" he grunts. "Listen to them. The blood lust! Look at that fellow's face." He pushes my head around to lamp a fat, putty-faced guy—collar gone, eyes poppin' from his head, and perspiration pourin' off him in streams, who's mouthin':
"The big bum's yellah; the nigger'll kill him!" over and over like a chant. "And I have to perform for that animal!" groans the Kid, writhin' in agony and talkin' half to himself now. "Damn that nigger—is this, then, the end after those two years of hell? Keep that fool away from my side with his oil, I—"
The bell rung.
Dynamite Jackson would of won then and there if he'd of known the damage he'd already done. But he didn't, for the Kid was grinnin' at him coldly and pokin' out his marvelous left. The dinge looked the picture of confidence and swung his head for a wise crack to his corner. I bet they've trained him out of doin' that again! As his bullet head flicked aside, Roberts whipped both arms over like twin snakes, and—woof—how it must of hurt him to straighten up! The left took Jackson on the chin, and as he sagged forward the right—oh, that sweet right!—thudded home over the heart and, brother, no man—not Jackson, not Samson—could of taken them two clean smashes and remained upright.
The Kid never looked back at him, but staggered over into my arms. Oh, sure, the rib was busted all right, and I'd paged a medico when he left his stool. We left Dynamite Jackson with the howlin' lunatics. He was out half a hour, and we nearly got pinched.
So that was that.
The Kid's sensational win over Dynamite removed the last barrier between us and the mill with the champ, but that clout in the ribs gummed up the works a bit. Some X-ray stills of the thing showed a nasty fracture, and the best bonesetter in New York claims it would be suicide for the boy to enter a ring inside of three months. However, I cheered up and made the best of it, figurin' that the long rest would do the Kid good, as I didn't want him drawn too fine from too much work. Three months' lay-up would also ease the strain on his nerves and give him a chance to put on weight—not fat—for the champ, which scaled around 215 ringside to the Kid's 195.
They was little hagglin' over signin' the articles, three weeks later. Twenty-five rounds to a decision was fin'ly agreed on as the distance, and I captured the champ's goat early by remarkin' that two rounds would be ample. The king of the heavyweights demanded $125,000, win, lose, draw, or earthquake, and Jimmy Brandt, the promoter, which had come prepared to give him twice that and throw in Grant's Tomb if necessary, kidded the big boob into fin'ly acceptin' $110,000. When it come to dealin' with us, they was even less bargainin'. Me and Brandt had got that all set a week before, viz., $30,000 guarantee, $10,000 trainin' expenses, and 33 1-3 of the movie rights. These last can be showed in Europe, South America, and the like, and if the massacre goes long enough is worth more than you think.
Well, after I have put up a ten-thousand-buck appearance forfeit, swore that Kid Roberts would box no more till he met the champ, and agreed to start trainin' on the scene of the battle a month before the clash, the champ poses for some newspaper stills with the Kid, and we're all set. Roberts dashed off to the fair Dolores, figurin' her half dead from lonesomeness, as he hadn't seen her for about a hour, whilst I spent a pleasant afternoon signin' movie and vaudeville contracts for the Kid, to go into effect immediately after the championship battle and to have a value of nothin' unless the Kid finished exactly first in that fracas. Then I grabbed a rattler for the wilds of Maine, where me and my athlete was goin' to hunt and fish and fish and hunt till a month before the big fight.
One of them Yale pals of the Kid's had nothin' less than a shootin' box up there, and he wouldn't have it no other way but that me and Roberts consider it our home till we got ready to go into heavy trainin'. So I went up ahead to get my hands on a couple of guides and the etc., with the Kid due to join me in a week.
Well, boys and girls, one fatal night I was sittin' in a easy-chair before a roarin' log fire, enjoyin' the art of smokin' and readin' "The Life of Napoleon," and thinkin' how many ways me and Napoleon was like each other—and there comes a knockin' on my chamber door, as Eddie Poe, the Raven, used to say.
The next minute I am enjoyin' all the delightful sensations of havin' stopped one of the Kid's hooks with my chin, as a result of havin' just read one of the world's greatest short stories, e., a telegram. Here it is:
Take next train New York Meet me Yale Club All plans upset. Roberts.
Sweet Papa!
Well, I again had the sensations of feelin' like Napoleon, only this time I felt like the well-known army man must of felt durin' the last half of the ninth at Waterloo. . . .
When I fin'ly get past the doorkeeper at the Yale Ctub, the Kid is pacin' back and forth in the lobby and the minute he flashed me he dragged me into a little room at one side. His twitchin' lips showed me where his nerves was.
"Now what the Gehenna's the—" I begins.
"Everything's the matter," he butts in, finishin' for me. "Lower your voice, can't you? This is a gentlemen's club, not a gymnasium!" A yellow piece of paper is shoved under my eyes. "Read that and weep!" he says.
This one is a wireless, readin' thusly:
Arrive pier 49 North River Thursday noon Keep from newspapers Booked as R. H. Carson. . . J. A.
"Who's J. A?" I says, handin' it back.
The Kid bends over and hisses in my ear, like a villain in the old-time gun operas which the movies killed off: "J. A. is J. A. Halliday—my father!"
"Well, that's fine!" I remarks pleasantly. "I'll be glad to meet the old gent. But what's this jam you're in now?"
He swung around on me, and for a instant I thought he was goin' to forget we was in a gentlemen's club and not no gymnasium.
"You—you—you colossal ass!" he busts out fin'ly. "And I thought you might help me. Gad, what a mess!" he adds, slappin' the arms of his chair.
"Mess of what?" I says, torn between innocence and stupidity.
"I am glad we're not alone," snarls the Kid, after a long, bloodthirsty look, "or I'm sure I would assassinate you in cold blood! It is more than two years since I said good-by to my father. He left here proud in the assurance that I would uphold the best traditions of our family and make my name in the profession I had chosen—engineering. In all our correspondence I have avoided any reference to the fact that I am a pugilist, and from the amount of money I've been sending him he obviously thinks I'm a success, perhaps a nationally known authority on—"
"But the newspapers will be printin'—" I begins.
"Bosh!" says the Kid impatiently, "Kid Roberts will mean nothing to him. Besides, I doubt if he ever more than glances at a sporting page. He had written me three letters to the effect that he was coming back and, lacking a forward address, they were all held at the club here while we were in Europe. I just got them when I dropped in yesterday. Why, in his last letter he says he's coming to realize the culmination of his greatest hope, or words to that effect. Can't you see what that means? He's ready for his comeback! And to think—oh, don't sit there looking at me like a fool. Can't you suggest something?"
"Why not come clean with the old man and be done with it, Kid?" I says, after a minute. "They's worse things than bein' a leather pusher. You made a name for yourself, you got a bank roll, and you're level. Why, say, they's thousands of good citizens which can reel off your ring record and measurements and don't even know the plot of the Constitution!"
"You don't understand," says the Kid, patiently. "Perhaps your philosophy is right, but it would be useless to attempt to convert my father, and the caste he represents, to it. He would simply consider that I had dishonored the name of Halliday and that his own son had made a mock of him. When he went on the rocks through the perfidy of his most trusted friends it broke his heart, but not his spirit. He took his gruel like a gentleman and pinned his hopes in me. He is not a young man, and this second shock might kill him. Kane Halliday, prize fighter!" The Kid gives a shiver. "Gad. I can see his face now!" He gets up and takes a turn around the room.
"Look here," I says, gettin' up myself. "For two years you've allowed your old man to think you was a dude when it come to civilly engineerin'. Now, then, whether you're a fighter or a plumber, the fact that you ain't what you claimed to be is what's goin' to hit the old man, ain't it? Sure! Therefore the thing is to make it look like you was a beaucoup civil engineer till you win the title. Then you can come clean, all will be forgiven, and no harm done! Get me?"
"But if—" says the Kid wildly.
"Shut up," I says. "This joint's a gentlemen's club and not no gymnasium! Now what we'll do is to hire a office somewheres. I can fix that up with any one of the Jersey promoters and we'll paint your name on the door, plaster the place with maps and whatever a civil engineer works with. Fine! You show that to father and we got that all jake. When the time comes to start trainin' for the big fight, you got a heavy job on out of town, get me? Away we go. You knock the champ for a row of milk cans, come back, show the old man your movie and vaudeville contracts which runs over $175,000 for next year; tell him why you didn't confess all before, that you never fought under your real name, anyways, so that part's all right, and if he don't kiss and make up—"
But the Kid is dancin' around and huggin' me till the bell hops is wonderin' which one of them cheated and sold him a pint.
"Enough, enough!" he cackles. "Good Lord, man, give me credit for some imagination. That's my one chance, an appeal to dad's sense of humor—and he has one. Besides, your stunt probably isn't half as despicable as it sounds. After all, it's for dad, even if we are deceivin' him, and in the end I'll tell him the whole business, of course."
"Say," I says, "I bet if your father ever seen you mixin' it up he'd be yellin' his head off and become a fight bug for life! Them dignified guys is all alike. I know a supreme court judge which got throwed out of a movie theatre for gettin' the hystericals over haplin. C'mon, we got to work fast. Call up Miss Brewster and the Senator and wise 'em up, so's they don't innocently tip off your father that we're a couple of first-class liars!"
Like wire walkin', this here proved easier said than done. At the first blush, the delicious Dolores says they is nothin' stirrin' on stallin' old man Halliday as far as she is concerned; what kind of a person would he think she was, etc., etc., and etc. Well, I devoted my talents to the Senator which had once told me to look him up any time he could do anything for me. The proposition landed sock on his funny bone, and between us we fin'ly captured Dolores. Dave Martin, a Newark fight promoter, rents us his office for a spell on the promise that we Will box our first exhibition at his club if we trim the champ. We take all the stills of great and near great pugs off the walls and replace 'em with a entirely different kind of maps, blue prints, and stacks of novels on the gift of civil engineerin'. A gay young stenog is hired and put to work copyin' off the City Directory, after we have with some difficulty convinced her that we ain't crazy or that she ain't bein' led into a trap. Then we get "Kane Halliday, Civil Engineer," painted on the door, the Kid goes over to meet his dad, and I sit down in the office and wish us both luck.
After a while the Kid reaches me via phone and says father has arrove lookin' like two $500,000 bills, and he is goin' to take him to dinner at the Ritz. Dave Martin comes up later to get some papers from his safe and says they will be a openin' pretty soon down in his temporary office for a bright young stud-poker player, so I fled the joint myself. Before leavin' I told the dazed stenog to be sure and stay till 5 p. m., as I expected President Wilson, Caruso, Ty Cobb, Eva Tanguay, and the Prince of Wales for a conference.
The followin' day Kid Roberts brings his male parent over to Newark. The big, upstandin', dignified old boy was very sweet to me and I fell for him right away. A close-up of him and you could see where the Kid got not only his heft but his class. He looks around the office approvin'ly, nods pleasantly to the charmin' stenog which is typin' seven letters I have dictated to myself, squats in a comfortable chair near a window and there he camps all through one of the most nerve-rackin' mornin's I have ever put in anywheres!
They was a million pugs and their managers which had to be shooed away and shut up without gettin' the old guy suspicious. Fin'ly at noon we had a excuse to go to lunch and the Kid seen that his dear old dad didn't come back afterward.
At last comes the time when we have to start West to begin trainin' for the big fight as per our contract. The Kid tells the old man at a dinner up at the Senator's palace one night that "business" will call him out of town for about a month. He says that this-job's the biggest one he's undertaken yet and that if he puts it through successfully he'll be fixed for life, all of which is true. Then, he adds with a happy smile, Dolores is goin' to be his sweet young bride.
"Provided," smiles Dolores, with a breath-takin' blush, whilst the Senator and the Kid's old man is slappin' each other on the back—"provided you give up your present—ah—profession, Kane!"
The Kid begins to choke over his oysters, and his old gent looks up kinda puzzled.
"And why, Miss Brewster?" he says. "Why should Kane give up the profession of engineering? Surely it is an honorable one and he's been tremendously successful at it, hasn't he?"
Wam! Dolores win the celluloid fireman's hat, hey?
She flames red to her shoulder blades, stalls for a minute by takin' a drink of water, and then gamely faces the Kid's father with a innocent smile. "Why—why, I suppose you'll think me foolish, Mister Halliday," she stammers, fakin' it wonderfully. "But—er—engineering will keep Kane away from home so much that—"
It was the Kid's dad himself which come to her rescue with a boomin' laugh and a wink to the Senator, and that baby grabbed the chance to switch the talk to the Japanese question. So that was all settled!
We caught a midnight rattler that night, leavin' the Kid's old man with the Senator and Dolores where he was to stay as their guest till we come back.
Late in the afternoon of the day Kid Roberts was to go to the post for the world's heavyweight championship, I was walkin' down the main street of the burg the battle was staged in on my ways to meet Jimmy Brandt, which promoted the battle, for a final conference. The town was loaded to the guards with fight fans from all over the Land of the Free, and every incomin' train was dumpin' off hundreds more, which battled with each other to give the speculators anywheres from a hundred berries up for seats within telephone distance of the ring. They was not as much profit for the speculators in this as you'd think, as the boys was all workin' for the promoter on a straight salary. The Kid was takin' a nap at our camp guarded by no less than Dynamite Jackson, which I'd brung on at beaucoup expense to work out with the Kid durin' the last two weeks before the mill. The boy had used up all the cheaper help long before. Passin' the lobby of the hotel on my ways back, I'm edging through the jam when out of a taxi piles a couple of guys which has a familiar look. Their backs is to me, but yet they's somethin' about the way one of 'em carries himself that sets me thinkin': I know this guy, who is he? And then as the bell hops run out for their suit cases, this bird turns around and I catch a good square view of his face.
Sweet Mamma—it was Kid Roberts' old man!
At the risk of 'em seein' me, I stopped dead not three feet away and took a good long look. When the other guy started up the steps, the thing was cinched. He was Senator Brewster.
I staggered up against a convenient lamp post and I'd of been there yet, I guess, if a copper hadn't come along and nudged me with his stick. "Take 'at booze away from here," he says. "They're watchin' me pretty clost!"
Still in a trance, I sidled into a taxi and beat it for the camp. Of course, I took it for granted that the old boy had been out to see Kid Roberts and prob'ly made a scene and the like, and I could imagine what shape the Kid was in by now. Think of it, to have a thing like this happen on the very brinks of a championship battle!
Dynamite Jackson is on guard outside the room where the Kid's sleepin', just like I'd left him. He greets me with a dazzlin', gold-toothed grin. "Can 'at white boy fight like he kin sleep," remarks Dynamite, noddin' to the door, "us handles a champeen by to-night!"
"You big black tramp!" I snarls. "What d'ye mean by lettin' anybody in to see the Kid this afternoon? Didn't I tell you—"
"How come?" butts in Dynamite, losin' his grin. "Ain't nobody been botherin' around heah, 'ceptin' yo' ownseff. Like y'all demands, I been settin' heah doin' a piece of readin', and they ain't been as much as a strange breeze come through 'at doah!"
The "piece of readin'" Dynamite meant was a account of his seven-round battle with Kid Roberts, clipped from a New York paper. He'd haul that clippin' out and grin over it fifty times a day.
Well, Dynamite convinced me that the Kid's old man hadn't paid his party call yet and once again I was able to resume breathin'. I never let the Kid know they was a thing out of the way, though he laughed his head off when I posted a guard at every entrance to the camp and even barred the newspaper bunch till we entered the ring that night.
The ring was pitched in a ball park, but it was summer, and the air was just right. When we crawled through the ropes and looked out over that roarin' ocean of bobbin' faces, it seemed to me like everybody in the world had turned out to see this scrap. Given a guess, I'd of said they was twenty-eight million guys there, but the official attendance was a scant 45,000. The movie lights overhead made the ring stand out in the surroundin' gloom as bright as a sunny day and blinded us till we got used to it. The Kid was cool and unsmilin', showin' nerves only by the shufflin' back and forth of his feet as he sat on his stool after bowin' to a two-minute ovation from the mob. He sat with his eyes fastened on a spot on the floor and looked neither to the right or left whilst Dynamite and Knockout Burns rinsed his mouth and massaged him, and I repeated my instructions. I told him to go after the champ from the bell, carryin' the battle to him and keepin' him movin' too fast to set. I don't know whether he heard me or not. He kept mutterin' thank God his father couldn't see the next five minutes. I turned away my head and says nothin'.
A sudden, deafenin' din from the crowd told us the champ was on his way down the aisle, and in a few minutes he stepped through on the other side, waved a bandaged paw at the frantic mob, and walked over to our corner. I felt the Kid's muscles tense under my hand, but he didn't move or look up. The champ reaches down and examines the Kid's bandages, carefully and deliberately, but failed to get a rise out of him. I got one out of the champ, though.
"You can shake hands now if you want to," I says to him. "It'll be the last chance! We want to come out fightin' with the bell, O. K.?"
He shrugged his shoulders, but he stopped grinnin' at his friends and walked over to his corner after that.
The introductions and posin' for the newspaper and movie stills was soon over, and then with a final roar the mob drawed its breath and settled back, the telegraph instruments beatin' a steady tattoo. I just got down under the ropes with the bell.
The Kid was across the ring like a panther and on top of his man before the champ was clear of his corner. They sparred cautiously for half a second, and then the Kid was short with a right to the head, the champ counterin' swiftly with a right and left to the body that brought a yell from the mob and a nervous grin from the Kid. The champ then tried to end matters with a punch and swung a vicious right for the jaw, but Roberts was gettin' cooler now and easily blocked it, puttin' both hands to the face and dancin' lightly away before the champ could set for a return. The customers begin yellin' for action, and the Kid obliged by drivin' the champ to the ropes with a volley of lefts and rights to the head that made the title holder dive into a clinch, where he hung on till the crowd booed him and the referee must of broke his arms tearin' 'em apart.
When they broke, the champ was bleedin' freely from a cut over his right eye and the Kid immediately made that the target for a beautiful left jab. The champion was mad now and took all kinds of chances to land a haymaker, but the Kid kept him off with his left, occasionally rippin' in that terrible right to the heart.
A second before the bell, however, the champ uncorked a right swing that landed flush on the Kid's jaw. It drove Roberts hard against the ropes, and on the rebound he fell into a wicked left to the body that dropped him to his knees. The crowd stood up, yellin' wildly, thinkin' the thing was over, but the Kid was up at "five," bangin' away with both hands and drivin' the astonished champ across the ring. The bell found them clinched in a neutral corner and Roberts run to his stool grinnin' and unmarked outside of a slight swellin' on his jaw. The champ looked very tired, and durin' the rest the odds switched from eight to five, with the champ favorite, to even money.
The champion come out for the second round to get it over with, and after pumpin' three stiff lefts to the face without a return, shifted his attack to the bedy, which begin to show big red blotches over the Kid's burn rib. Roberts fin'ly untracked himself and sent the champ staggerin' back with a wicked right uppercut, followin' that with a left to the mouth that showered the champ's neck and shoulders with gore. The mob kept up a continual din that must of been heard in Egypt. Crazy with rage, the champ pumped in two rights that looked pretty low, and the referee cautioned him, but the Kid waved the official away and drove a terrific right to the champ's ribs and nearly knocked him through the ropes. It looked like the end, and the Kid drove the mob into several higher degrees of insanity by crashin' the champ to the canvas with a perfectly timed right hook to the jaw. He took "nine" and was in a bad way when he floundered to his feet and managed to clinch right in our corner.
Then come the most sensational thing I ever seen at a prize fight—the thing the newspapers give more space to than they did the fight! The champ has his back to me and the Kid is lookin' out at the crowd over his shoulder, tryin' to work loose and finish his man. Suddenly his face goes a dull white, and his eyes takes on a wild stare. His arms slowly slides down the champ's quiverin' back and he shivers, like they was a sudden draft. I jumped on the stool and looked into the crowd, followin' his own startled gaze, and I seen his father, Dolores, and Senator Brewster sittin' in a ring-side box!
Even the newspaper guys is excited now, and the mob is jumpin' up and down yellin' "Fake!" when the champ slides away, deliberately measures the hypnotized Kid, and floors him with a right swing. The round had fifteen seconds to go, and I could of cheerfully murdered the Kid's old man then and there and taken the "chair" with pleasure! Gypped out of a world's championship! Over the moanin' of Dynamite Jackson I hear "nine!" from the referee and see the Kid strugglin' to his feet, reelin' about like a guy full of hooch. The sneerin' champ straightens him up with a left jab and then drops him again with another crashin' right. In the middle of the count which would of surely been the wind-up, the blessed bell rung.
We had to half carry the Kid to his chair, where he slumped over in a heap, his head saggin' forward on his neck like the same was broke. The referee walks over, takes a look, and gazes at me inquirin'ly. Before I can say anything, somebody grabs me by the shoulders and shoves me to one side, I hear familiar voices and see Senator Brewster and the Kid's old man, their blazin' white shirt fronts spattered with blood and water from the sponge Dynamite is wavin' at 'em, climbin' through the ropes. Like a flash, I sees a chance in a million to cop, so I shoved the Kid's dumbfounded handlers out of the ring. The old man is slappin' the Kid's face to bring him to. The Senator has emptied the water bucket over him and is now shovin' the ammonia bottle under his nose.
"Come on, son!" the old man's half shoutin', half cryin'. "It was my fault, I should not have come here, I know. But, oh, my boy, I wanted to see you win. Come on, it's dad—can you hear me? It's dad, Kane boy—go on and kill that fellow! Son—son—wake up!"
The Kid's glazed eyes began to clear, and he sees his old man. Senator Brewster, a sight for the movies, is rubbin' him with alcohol, and tears, get that, tears, is streamin' down his face. The Kid shudders and begins straightenin' up. "Dad," he says, "I—"
"Don't talk!" pants the old man, rubbin' his wrists. "I'll explain everything later. I want to see you a champion! Come on, son—see, your color's coming back now. Go out and win! Remember in that Harvard game when you were knocked out in the first few minutes of play and insisted on staying and—oh, son, come on—"
"Why, of course!" smiles the Kid, dazedly. "I know this is all a nightmare, but even in a dream I can whip this fellow! I—"
"You got eight seconds to get your man off his stool!" grunts the referee. "Wanna throw it up?"
"Ring the chimes," barks the Kid, "I'll be there!" He turns to his old man: "Dad, I would never have lied to you, but—"
"Who's them old guys?" says a newspaper bird to another one which has left his telegraph operator and is in our corner, drinkin' in every word.
"Well," says the other guy, grinnin', "I'll be on the street with it first anyhow, so I don't mind tellin' you. One of 'em's Senator Brewster of New York and the other's old J. A. Halliday—Kid Roberts' father—and they're handlin' him, that's all!"
"Wow!" yells the first guy, "I don't give a damn who wins this scrap. Sweet Cookie—what a story!"
The bell clangs, and I shove the Senator and the Kid's old man out of the ring just in time. The champion's handlers is yellin' over the ropes to the referee and pointin' to our corner, but he don't pay no attention to 'em. The champ advanced smilin'ly, when a human cyclone struck him in mid ring. It was the first punch that he didn't expect that licked him, because the Kid put everything he had left in that—a right swing to the jaw that dumped the champ with a crash that sent up showers of dust from underneath the padded canvas. He pulled himself up by the ropes at "eight," shakin' his head to clear it and pawin' weakly at the dancin' Kid in front of him.
"Take your time, Kid!" I bellered, and the boy heard me over the roar of the crowd, for he nodded and coolly measured the totterin' champ with a light left before floorin' him again with a right to the button. Again the champ floundered to his feet—they called him yellah afterward, but I seen the fight!—and again the fast tirin' Kid dropped him, this time usin' both hands for the job.
The champ got to his knees, slid back, and fin'ly got up at "nine," and now the Kid stepped back and hollered to the beaten champ's seconds to throw in the sponge and save their man from further punishment. They hesitated and, with a dyin' effort, the champ swung for the Kid's unprotected face, missed and sprawled full length on the mat, face down.
As he started to drag himself to his feet, a pitiful sight, the towel came hurtlin' into the ring from the other side, and Kid Roberts was heavyweight champion of the world!
The Kid's old man was talkin' behind the barred doors of the dressin' room, whilst the mob pounded outside.
"When I went to South America, son," he says, "I arranged with the Pinkerton agency to keep tabs on you. I knew the pitfalls and temptations that faced you when—when I went bankrupt and was forced to set you loose on your own. They've been sending me press clippings about you almost since I went away—why, Kane, the object of my trip here was to see you win the championship! When you did not immediately enlighten me, I decided to let you think I was fooled so that you could work out your problem in your own way. I—"
"Then," gasps the Kid, "I've been writing to you that—a—and you have known I was a prize fighter since—"
"Since your first professional fight, son, two years ago," smiles the old man, pattin' his shoulder. "Ahem!" he says, his eyes twinklin', "J. A. Halliday, father of the world's heavyweight champion—well that's something!"