Once upon a time there was a comely young Eyetalian which rejoiced in the high-soundin' name of Juvenal and got himself no little notoriety as a poet among the boys and girls which capered around Rome in the good old days when Nero, the prominent fiddler, was doin' his stuff. I never met this Juvenal guy personally, but I'd of liked to, on the account he must of been a good skipper, from some of the wise cracks he pulled. As the dashin' manager of a gentleman box fighter, I have got to where I fit a dress suit like I'm poured in it, toy with a wicked cup of tea, dance like St. Vitus, and now and then plow through one of the classical books, so's if the subject comes up I won't think "She Stoops to Conquer" is a story about a scrub lady, for the example. That's how I come to trip over the followin' nifty, from the busy pen of Mr. Juvenal.
"There are few disputes in life which do not originate with a woman!"
Juvy wrote that on a piece of paper nearly two thousand years ago, prob'ly stealin' it from a chance remark of Adam's, and I must say that in my opinion conditions ain't changed much since their time. Don't run away with the idea that I am puttin' in a rap for the ladies, because, personally, I think the fair and warmer sex is the rat's rubbers, I do for a fact. But the crack of Juvenal's about the gals bein' at the bottom of most disturbances reminds me of the disturbance started by little Désirée Collet, alias "The Widower's Mite." In a attempt to win herself Kane Halliday she caused considerable dispute—in fact, a dispute for the heavyweight championship of the world.
When me and Kid Roberts bound back to New York after our trip to the loggin' camp, me and my comin' gold mine makes the rounds of the newspaper offices and lets the sport writers in on our modest plans to recapture the world's heavyweight championship, then held by Jim Oliver. We don't want the champion yet. Kid Roberts has been away from the ring too long to step with the title holder after merely knockin' off this Tiger Enright, even if the Bengal was a tough egg and nobody's fool as a leather pusher.
It was no cinch to make Kid Roberts see into this, and don't think it was. The Kid was rarin' to go. He wanted his jack, his title, and his wife back, and a boy like Roberts is not easy to hold when he craves anything! How the so ever, like usually, my judgment prevailed—till along come Désirée Collet. Then the panic was on!
The newspaper guys was simply great to us and we couldn't of got more publicity if we'd of been a couple of six-headed elephants flyin' up Broadway at noon. The big, clean-cut, good-lookin' Kid, especially at home in dress suit or ring togs, always had a million dollars' worth of personality and was a highly popular champion when he held the title, whilst Jim Oliver had as many friends as the flu. Then, again, everything connected with Kid Roberts made him what the sport writers calls "good copy." The swell family he come from, his partin' from his society-leader wife, his record when he was a milk-fed college boy at Yale, what he done for his old man, etc., all furnished stuff "Constant Reader" likes.
After readin' about us for a couple of days, the New York fight promoters got busy. Wild to cash in on the notoriety he was gettin', they want to stage a scuffle between Kid Roberts and Jim Oliver without further ado. But even though they offered us fifty thousand bucks for our end with the privilege of a percentage, I wouldn't let my boy go in there with the champion then, and that's all there was to it!
A few weeks later Kid Roberts is doin' road work through Central Park with Ptomaine Joe to keep in condition for a couple of brawls I'm linin' up, when, lo and behold, as they say in Pittsburgh, we crash right into Désirée Collet and her father at the lake. I knew that Désirée thought Kid Roberts was all the men in the wide, wide world, and that makes me plenty uneasy. Young and good-lookin' enough to bust up anybody's peace of mind, Désirée was about as harmless as dynamite, the way matters shapes up to me.
Anyways, this meetin' was a regular movin' picture. Désirée and her father is havin' a battle with a hard-boiled taxi driver when we arrive on the scene. Ptomaine Joe is the first to spot 'em. This tomato could pick out Désirée two miles away in a fog—he was cuckoo over her, that's the answer. Kid Roberts merely smiles pleasantly as he drags off his cap and bows, but Désirée is just quiverin' with joy.
"Bonjour, mon cher, comment allez-vous?" she says.
"Très bien, merci; et vous? Comment vous portez-vous donc ce matin?" says Kid Roberts, which would of made a monkey out of Napoleon when it comes to talkin' frog.
Then he shakes hands with Désirée's old man and looks from the smilin' girl to the scowlin' chauffeur.
"What's the trouble?" he asks her.
A epidemic of shoulder shakin' and hand wavin' begins.
"Thees cochon," she says, pointin' a sneerin' finger at the frownin' chauffeur. "Thees cochon I engage for drive us to ze 'otel what you call Reetz. Name of a name! He drive us now for two hour around ze park and when I say where is zat 'otel, he tells me 'Nevaire you min', kit, what you care? I geeve you nize long ride!'"
"The old army game!" growls Ptomaine Joe, and swings at the scared taxi driver. "I'm goin' to rune him!"
Kid Roberts and me grabs Ptomaine, whilst the chauffeur backs away in a panic.
"Lay off me, boss!" he says. "I don't want no frolic with you, that's a cinch! I—I'll pay the fare out of me own pocket—I—I ain't lookin' for no muss, I"
"That will do!" Kid Roberts cuts him off sternly. Then he turns to Désirée. "Where did you engage him?" he asks her.
"At ze Gran' Central," she says, with a bewitchin' smile.
Kid Roberts hands the chauffeur a dollar and tells him to take the air. That's somethin' this baby is only too glad to do, and it looks like there'll be no hats broke or nothin' like that, when, in a misguided attempt to be friendly, the unfortunate taxi pilot stares at the Kid and remarks: "Say—d'ye know you're a dead ringer for Kid Roberts?"
Me and Ptomaine Joe laughs, but the Kid keeps a straight face.
"Kid Roberts?" he says. "Who is Kid Roberts?"
"The big yellah tramp which run out of a fight with the champeen!" sneers the chauffeur.
Silence!
The Kid's face burns a angry red and I step forward with violence in mind, when Ptomaine Joe with a howl of rage fixes everything up. The man mountain grabs the amazed taxi driver by the shoulders, lifts him up, shakes him like puss does little mousie and then coolly drops him into the lake! There was only a couple of feet of water at the point where he was standin', but, then, who wants to be throwed into even a couple of inches of it? Kid Roberts, me, and Désirée's father is petrified, but Désirée claps her hands and shrieks with delight. Then we all beat it, as some park strollers hove in sight.
Well, Kid Roberts sent me and Ptomaine Joe back to our hotel, whilst he took the charmin' visitors to their hideout. Both the Kid and Désirée seems tickled silly to take up their friendship where they left off in St. Thérèse, but it's different here! I ain't afraid of nothin' the Kid will do; I'm busy worryin' about what Désirée, with that quick French temper of hers, is liable to pull when she gets herself convinced that the Kid's interest in her is simply brotherly and that he's savin' any heavier feelin's for his wife.
That afternoon when Kid Roberts come back whistlin' gayly from seein' the appetizin' Désirée home, I asked him point-blank what she's doin' in the bustlin' hamlet of New York.
"She came here to realize a lifelong ambition," says the Kid, carefully layin' out his shavin' weapons. "She wants to go on the stage or in the movies—preferably the latter."
"So she's cuckoo, hey?" I sneers.
Kid Roberts stops whistlin' and swings around, frownin' at me.
"That's out, Joe!" he says warnin'ly. "Miss Collet is a delightful girl, as unspoiled and naïve as a child. She has youth, beauty, and undeniable personality, and I don't blame her for rebelling against her living entombment in that little lumber town, barren of congenial companionships or amusements."
"Tomato sauce!" I says. "The kid's nutty over you, and you better check her out!"
"Don't be an idiot," grins Kid Roberts, busy with the lather.
That very night Kid Roberts panics me by throwin' a party for Désirée and her father. He takes 'em to dinner and the Follies and afterward to Jazzbo's, a dancery. Me and Ptomaine Joe was along with 'em as ballast, so there was plenty shaperoans; but still and all I couldn't help feelin' that the Kid was monkeyin' with nitroglycerine by playin' around with this fiery little damsel from dear old St. Thérèse.
The featured comedian of our gay little party was Mons. Ptomaine Joe. This mug was a riot, no foolin'! I don't think he'd ever had a good time in his life before and in a hired dress suit he's all swelled up like a human yeast cake, upstagin' one and all as if he was Duke of Pneumonia. The leased evenin' wear fits this two-hundred-pound giggle like the skin fits under a turkey's chin—in fact, about the only thing Joseph could ever get to fit him ready-made would be a scarfpin. Kiddin' him on his weird appearance was a waste of witty remarks. Joe was more than well satisfied with himself, and when he's a sight to make a mummy guffaw, he looks me over carefully and then coolly remarks that people which lives in tin houses shouldn't throw can openers!
Well, Kid Roberts spends the next few days and quite a few pennies showin' Désirée and her father the sights of New York, and through a friend of his in the show business he likewise gets this charmer's name filed with a theatrical agency. Of course none of this makes Désirée sore at him, and me and poor broken-hearted Ptomaine Joe watch her gettin' further in love daily with feelin's of the greatest alarm. So far the only word the Kid has had from his wife was a cable so cold it could of been signed "Zero."
About two weeks after Désirée hit Gotham she calls Kid Roberts up one day to tell him she's landed a job. She's all set with a vaudeville act, then playin' the Big Time theatres around New York. The act is no less than Jim Oliver's—the heavyweight champ carryin' a flock of bathin' beauties with him for what is known along Broadway as a "flash." Désirée is as happy and excited as a rookie copper making his first pinch, and she won't have it no other way, but that Kid Roberts has got to come to the theatre and watch her work. This is somethin' the Kid don't wish to do, on account of the heavyweight champion bein' with the act. After havin' refused to fight Oliver, Kid Roberts feels that if he shows up at the theatre where the champ is doin' his stuff it will simply look like a cheap attempt on his part to get publicity by annoyin' the title holder. He tries to stall Désirée and has no luck at all. What's the use of her bein' a actress if her hero won't come and see her act? She storms and pleads and fin'ly hangs up the phone, weepin'.
That done the trick, of course. Women has won victories with tears that a man couldn't win with a army at his back! Kid Roberts fusses and frets around the room for a couple of minutes and then calls up Désirée to tell her to dry her eyes, because he'll be at the theatre that night, come what may. As I had fondly hoped his refusal to go had got us shut of Désirée, I could of choked him!
At the Kid's request I went out and got three dutats for the show, because to job Ptomaine Joe out of seein' his loved one perform would of been nothin' short of cruelty to animals. So the three musketeers is in seats well up in front that evenin' when the curtain rolls up on the champ's act. Except for the girls, it was old stuff. The gasp-producin' bathin' beauties strutted across the stage, one of 'em tore off a song, and then there was a few remarks dropped about "our fearless champeen." A curtain in back of 'em goes up, and there's a gym. Some settin'-up exercises by the girls, which goaled the old boys down in front and murdered the young ones too, and then a guy in a Tuxedo steps out and threatens to introduce "The undefeated champeen heavyweight boxer of the civilized world, laaadeees and gen-tell-men, I present for your approval this evenin', Jim Oliver!"
All this, of course, is applesauce to us. What we're interested in is Désirée Collet, the undefeated champion looker of the civilized world. Well, we seen her, and I must say she was somethin' to look at, don't think she wasn't! This bathin'-girl costume, or what they was of it, was duck soup for Désirée, which had more curves than a scenic railway and was simply a opium fiend's dream as she scampered about that stage. I'm fairly girl-proof myself, but Désirée, give me a passin' thrill, and what she done to Ptomaine Joe was pitiful. This unfortunate clown just sit there on the edge of his seat with his mouth and eyes as wide open as a First Avenue crap game, and you could of cut off his leg and he'd never of knew a thing about it till he read it in the paper. If he was crazy about Désirée, before, why, he's triple insane about her now!
The effect on Kid Roberts of Désirée au naturel, though, was altogether different. The Kid's classical forehead is drawn together in a frown which ridges it like a washboard, and every now and then he shoots a angry glare at some bozo which is gettin' a close-up of the girl through opera glasses. In fact, his plain air of dislike for matters gets me puzzled.
"What's the big idea, Kid?" I whisper, nudgin' him. "Don't the young lady knock you over as a actress?"
"The costume that child has on is disgraceful!" says the Kid angrily. "Look at these leering beasts about us smacking their lips!"
"Well, she's a tasty number," I says soothingly. "If"
"If I'd had the faintest idea that Désirée would be engaged for any such spectacle as this," goes on Kid Roberts, ignorin' me, "I would never have had her name filed with that infernal theatrical agency. I feel the responsibility is mine, and I shall certainly endeavor to place her elsewhere. That abbreviated costume is so incongruous with her natural innocent naïveté—it is as if a baby's picture was on the label of a whisky bottle!"
Well, as long as we're there we settle back to watch the champion punch the bag, skip rope, box a couple of rounds with a sparrin' partner, and go through other routine trainin' exercises. The heavyweight king was in great shape, there was no gettin' away from that—looked to me to be no more than a month away from his best fighting form.
We're just about to leave, when there comes a startlin' interruption. Oliver's press agent has found out that Kid Roberts is in the audience, and he sees a great chance to get his man on the front page of the newspapers at our expense. This publicity trapper was a swift thinker, I'll say that for him! At a signal from behind the stage the champion suddenly stops workin' and out steps the announcer again. A attack of human curiosity makes us wait to see what it's all about. We should of kept on goin' out!
"Laaadeees and gent-tell-men!" bawls the announcer, raisin' his hand. "They has been some loose talk in the newspapers that Jim Oliver, undefeated heavyweight champeen of the civilized world, was tickled silly when Kid Roberts ab-so-lutely refused to box him for the title. Well, Kid Roberts is in the audience here this evenin' and if he's got the gu—eh—nerve, the champeen will box him right here and now!"
For a instant you could cut the silence with a knife, and then the theatre is in a uproar, cheers and hisses fillin' the air whilst everybody in the place tries to find out where we're sittin'. Nobody knows better than the champ's press agent that there ain't a chance in the wide, wide world of any bout between Kid Roberts and Jim Oliver comin' off on that stage—there's just two billion things to stop it—but many of the yokels out in front is bound to think the challenge is level, and I realize that the Kid's standin' rests on what he does in the next two minutes. I gaze around wildly, lookin' past the coldly smilin' and unruffled Kid Roberts at the excited faces turned towards us—some sneerin', some admirin'. In the mass I recognize a old pal, grim-faced Tim Wise, police captain of the district the theatre's in, and I immediately get a rush of brains to the head. First I tell Kid Roberts to start right for the stage, but take his time in gettin' there. The Kid looks puzzled, but, readin' my face, he does what I tell him, like usual.
The audience cheers wildly as Kid Roberts strolls down the aisle as cool as the Labrador coast, lookin' more like a movie star than a ex-champion heavyweight in his form-fittin' dress suit. I push my way over to Tim Wise and whisper frantically in his ear. Well, a word to this Wise was sufficient! He jumps up and hollers that if any box fight is attempted on that stage he will take great pleasure in pinchin' the house manager and both principals, as the theatre is not equipped with a boxin' license. Halfways across the footlights, Kid Roberts halts, gazes at the scowlin' champion and then shakes his head sorrowfully, like he feels that stoppin' the fracas was a tough break for him. As he starts back to his seat the thrilled audience shakes the roof with applause.
So this stunt, framed by the champ's press agent to make a burn out of Kid Roberts in public, has actually rebounded to my leather pusher's credit. If I'd of sit up all night I couldn't of personally doped a better way to bring Kid Roberts before a mixed metropolitan audience—ready to fight, handsome, polished, and dressed like a fashion plate. You can imagine how this baby stood out on the stage beside the glowerin' cave man which held the title. I bet the weaker sex present had sore hands for a month and the next mornin' the newspapers give us more than the best of the thing.
So that was that!
How the so ever, let us finish up the events of that night. We meet the peace-destroyin' Désirée back stage after the show and she's a mass of smiles.
"Whal, 'ow you like Désirée to-night, my fren's?" she wants to know.
"O. K.," I says. "You got past nicely."
"Kid," says Ptomaine Joe, dangerously ill of love, "you was a wow, I'll tell the pink-eyed world!"
"You were charming, Désirée," says Kid Roberts quietly, "but, frankly, I do not like your costume."
The bright smile leaves Désirée's beautiful face like magic and its place is taken immediately by a frown.
"Vraiment!" she snaps. "Ce n'est pas gentil ce que vous dites-la! But what ees ze mattaire wiz my costume?"
"It—it is too abbreviated," says Kid Roberts flushin' a bit, but evidently determined to go through with matters now that he's begun. "It is not only merely abbreviated, Désirée, it is—it is—well; you are too young and unspoiled to be exposed to the supersophisticated atmosphere of that act. I am sincerely sorry that I was the means of your getting that engagement and—"
"Pardon, monsieur!" interrupts Désirée, with a edd light in her sparklin' eyes. "Why 'ave you thees alarm for me? What you care what I do? What ees your in-ter-est in Désirée?"
That was puttin' it up to the Kid cold turkey, but it didn't seem to bother him.
"Merely friendship, Désirée," he says smilin'ly. "I want to protect you while we are both in New York—as much as I consistently can."
From the way the expression changed on Désirée's face, a baby could see that she had looked for a much warmer statement than that. Désirée had been fairly raised on guys makin' desperate love to her—she's prob'ly been goalin' the sturdy menfolk since she throwed away her rattle for a powder puff—and here was a fellow she thought was a clam's earrings, yet he don't give her a tumble. Believe me, boys and girls. Désirée was plenty steamed!
"So you onlee weesh to be my fren'?" she says, curlin' her cherry lip. "Whal, don' bozzer yourself wiz me. I do not 'ave use for one private gendarme. I 'ave mon père for zat!"
"As you wish," bows the Kid calmly.
"Why you no fight zis Monsieur Olivaire?" persists Désirée, determined to start somethin'. "You are afraid for him?"
Kid Roberts flushes and his eyes glint, but he keeps his head. "I can see our little actress is developing temperament," he smiles. "You are evidently in a quarrelsome mood this evening, Désirée, so perhaps we had better postpone this discussion indefinitely. I do not wish to air my views on Jim Oliver and—"
"He has ask me to go out wiz him," butts in Désirée. "He pick me out from all ze girls in ze act—what of zat?"
The Kid quits smilin' and looks very serious. "If you should go out with Jim Oliver, Désirée, be sure his invitation includes your father," he says.
"I do as please me!" says Désirée, "Au revoir, monsieur!"
With that she flounces away, leavin' us flat. I come near givin' three rousin' cheers, because I think that's where Miss Désirée Collet exits from the life and adventures of Kid Roberts. Nothin' of the kind!
The remarkable young woman's next imitation is to phone the Kid a few days later with the information that she has quit the drama. This pleases Kid Roberts, but he wants to know just what made up Désirée's mind for her, Désirée don't mind tellin' him in the least. She claims she went out with Jim Oliver and the heavyweight champ insulted her to such a extent that she felt she could no longer stay with his act. Kid Roberts tells me all this with blazin' eyes and squared jaw, but I think Désirée's scenario is the bunk—more than likely another plant of some kind engineered by Oliver's press agent. The high-strung Kid is already boilin' over, and my views on the subject get him red-headed. He calls me a incurable sinnick, whatever that is, says I don't believe nobody or nothin' is level and that I must think the Revolutionary War was a frame-up. Whilst he's bawlin' me out he's gettin' into his hat and coat, and with mild curiosity I ask him where he's bound for.
"I am to blame for Désirée ever coming in contact with a beast like Oliver," he says bitterly. "And I'm going up to his hotel to thrash him within an inch of his life!"
Sweet Mamma—he talks about thrashin' the heavyweight champ like you'd talk about thrashin' wheat!
"You're dizzy!" I says. "Quit actin' like a schoolboy and be yourself. If—"
A slam of the door cuts me off and likewise leaves me alone!
Well, of course, there's nothin' left for me to do but bound after him, and I'm on his heels when he pulls up outside Oliver's suite at the Hotel Ephant. A ferocious drummin' on the door makes it open with Red Young, the champ's manager, at the knob, whilst I'm still frantically tryin' to cool the Kid off.
If Red didn't look surprised when he seen that me and Kid Roberts was his callers, then neither did Balboa look surprised when he seen the Pacific.
"Hey, you guys wants to be more careful," says Red in alarm, after his first amazed gasp, "if you want to do business with me and the champ, we got to be under cover, otherwise when we fight you the yokels will be hep that it's framed!"
"There'll be no frame about this fight!" says Kid Roberts grimly, shovin' Red aside. "Where's Oliver?"
Then the fun began!
The heavyweight champ come saunterin' in from another room where he'd been entertainin' the usual mob of yes men which hangs around a champion of—anything. Oliver looked astounded when he seen Kid Roberts glarin' at him, but he looked even more astounded when the Kid broke away from me and shot a straight left to his mouth, cuttin' it. With a oath, Oliver steadied himself and come back with a hard right to the head as the boys from the other room piled in. It took five minutes of the most earnest endeavor and the full ship's company to tear them two strugglin' giants apart, and in answer to a thousand hysterical questions Kid Roberts panted out what it was all about. When he accused Oliver of insultin' Désirée, the champ stared at him in such dumfounded astonishment that I believed him on the spot when he said he'd never spoke two words to the girl and couldn't even remember who she was. But it was different with the ragin' Kid Roberts. He waves Oliver's denials away and says he'll never be satisfied till he's pounded him to a jelly, in the ring or out of it! Red Young, which couldn't get rid of the idea that the Kid was a set-up for his champ, says that's a good thought and grins meanin'ly at some highly delighted sport writers which was among Oliver's guests. Then Red asks me when we'll be ready to sign articles. I says "Never!" and Kid Roberts shoves me away and says: "Right now!"
Two days later, in spite of the fact that I barked and meowed myself hoarse against it, Kid Roberts signed to fight Jim Oliver fifteen frames to a decision at Madison Square Garden. The newspapers described it as "For the world's heavyweight championship and—a girl!"
Applesauce!
In response to Ptomaine Joe's pitiful pleadin's, I got him the semifinal—ten rounds with a banana entitled One-Jab McGoldberg—for the boxin' cook's first appearance in a ring. Whilst arrangin' this little incident, I mingle around with the sharpshooters and wise guys of Times Square and they tip me that there's no more chance of Kid Roberts winnin' the title than there is of me gettin' elected president of Harvard by acclamation. The champion is a three to one favorite and the "wise money" is on him. Try to take him, that's all! Naturally, this bothers me no little, but I says nothin' to the Kid, as his job is to do the fightin' and mine to do the worryin'. Kid Roberts is puttin' everything he's got into his trainin', makin' his weary sparrin' partners sick of the game, and I never seen him more cheerful. He's cabled his wife just how important the comin' mill is and what it may mean to them both, askin' for a word of cheer in return. Désirée has laid low since she told the Kid that Oliver had got out of line with her, a thing for which I am more than thankful.
Well, the big night fin'ly rolls around and the old Garden is jammed till the walls is bulgin' out as early as seven o'clock. Hundreds of wild-eyed fight bugs is turned away, and most of 'em hang around outside to annoy the coppers and wait for the returns of the big battle. The preliminaries was just excitin' enough to keep the packed house on edge and then out comes Ptomaine Joe in the semiwindup, his first professional fight. This scuffle was one for the book!
Ptomaine Joe's unreasonable size would of got him a laugh if he hadn't done nothin' at all, but when he falls through the ropes tryin' to enter the ring and pulls a few other bones which shows he don't know what it's all about, the 15,000 humorists in the crowd of 15,000 trains their heavy artillery on him. Between the sarcastical wise cracks of the customers, the blindin', unfamiliar lights over the ring, the referee's gruff instructions, and this and that, poor Joseph was just a bundle of drawn nerves. He was rarin' to go and couldn't go for rarin'! One-Jab McGoldberg, no dwarf himself, looked a bit pale when he gazed on the human mountain he was asked to knock off and he talked to his troubled handlers very seriously. Just before the gong Ptomaine Joe's nerves got the best of him.
"Hold everything!" he suddenly howls to the crowd in a high-pitched voice; "I'm gonna lay this tomato like a rug!"
The mob is still graspin' its sides when the bell rings and Ptomaine Joe bounds out of his corner like a piece of india-rubber. His eyes is shut tight and his long arms is swingin' like windmills. The panic-stricken referee takes one wild look and then starts to flee for his life, but he was a bit too slow. The first punch Josephus landed caught the referee under the ear and knocked him out of the ring into the press seats! The crowd goes crazy, and One-Jab McGoldberg, the only guy in the joint not hysterical, creeps up behind Ptomaine Joe, measures the back of his head, hauls off and knocks him as stiff as a waiter's collar. The dazed and enraged referee sticks his head under the bottom rope and counts Joey out from there. Then he picks up a chair and was goin' to brain the prostrate chef, but cooler heads prevail.
But Ptomaine Joe ain't all done yet. He quickly revived under scientific treatment, as you couldn't kill him with arsenic. When he comes back as one of Kid Roberts's handlers in the main bout, the crowd pegs him and starts editorial comments on his past, present, and future. Their stuff was funny, but not to Joe! He stood the razzin' for about three minutes, then with a yell he picks up the water bucket and hurls it over the ropes at his tormentors. The next instant ninety-six coppers gives Joseph the air. Thus endeth the first lesson!
Well, there was nothin' but hearty laughs connected with the semifinal, but it was all different with the main bout, and don't think it wasn't. Before Kid Roberts and the champion had been steppin' along two minutes I found out what the wisenheimers meant by tellin' me the Kid couldn't win, and I seen we was in for a proper jobbin'!
From the very first tap of the gong Kid Roberts was fightin' two men—Jim Oliver and the referee. This fair-minded official kept up a steady snarlin' monologue in the pantin' Kid's ear:
"Hey, keep 'em up, 'at last one landed on his knee! Why don't you break when I tell you—what are you, a wrestler? Stop 'at buttin' or I'll disqualify you, get me? Go on, fight, or I'll stop it! Don't try to heel him, I'm watchin' you!" etc., etc., till he had the Kid's nerves and fin'ly half the crowd on edge.
Why, I tell you it was the rawest thing I ever seen in a ring and what I ain't seen just never was, that's all! A cleaner fighter than Kid Roberts has yet to rub a shoe in resin. He was too clean with most of the guys he fought—steppin' away with arms upraised out of the clinches and lettin' his man recover his balance from a chance stumble when even the customers was howlin' for him to knock the jobbie out. This bought referee's "warnin's" was just part of the frame to make the Kid lose, and I knew that as soon as the third man in the ring thought the time was ripe we'd be disqualified for "foulin'." Honest, as all this dawns on me I ain't fit to be at large!
Kid Roberts was cautious and slow to get started, Oliver takin' the first round by doin' most of the leadin'. A wicked and generally well-timed straight left kept the Kid's head bobbin' and soon had his face painted red. He followed my advice to keep in close after a bit and at infightin' he handled the champ like a baby, poundin' Oliver's ribs with short lefts and rights which didn't do the heavyweight king a bit of good. The honest referee soon noticed this, however, and rushin' nobly to Oliver's rescue, kept the men apart. Just after the bell Kid Roberts slipped half-ways to the mat in breakin' from a clinch and Oliver uppercut him with a terrible right whilst he was still off balance. A storm of booes and hisses come from the crowd and the champ sneered as he walked to his corner, leavin' the Kid dazed against the ropes.
A few douses of cold water, some expert massagin' at the back of his neck and the old ammonia bottle under his nose brung Kid Roberts around and I sent him out for Round Two with instructions to mail everything to Oliver's head and jaw. I'm double certain that the first punch within walkin' distance of the champ's belt will be the signal for the referee to stop the fight.
They met in mid-ring, Kid Roberts this time duckin' Oliver's automatic straight left and wakin' up the house by counterin' with a stiff right cross to the chin. The champ didn't like this and clinched, complainin' to the sympathetic referee when the Kid whaled away with both hands at his mid-section. The referee quickly broke 'em and was heartily razzed by the crowd. Oliver shot a right and left to the head and the Kid was short with a left to the face. They fiddled around, each lookin' for a openin' which would end it and the impatient mob whistled and stamped their feet, bellerin' for a little more speed.
Kid Roberts obliged with a left uppercut to the heart and a right to the ear. He got a torrid left to the wind in return and tried to clinch, but the champ suddenly woke up and drove him across the ring with a shower of lefts and rights to face and body. The house was in a uproar and the Kid looked to me for advice. "Mix it!" I hollered. "This banana never seen the day he could punch with you!"
With his back against the ropes in Oliver's corner, the Kid brung up his right in a vicious uppercut which sent Oliver's head back like it was hinged and shook the water out of his hair. They then stood shoulder to shoulder and slugged like a pair of enraged maniacs till outside the ropes it sounded like a race riot! Both quickly tired from the terrific pace and fell into a clinch, where Oliver hit Kid Roberts four times with the deadly and foul rabbit punch on the back of his neck. The referee paid no attention to the hisses and the Kid fin'ly shoved Oliver away by main strength. On the break, Oliver whose ugly pan iooked like a raw steak, shot a left to the heart and the Kid's knees sagged. A terrible right to the jaw put him on one knee for the first knockdown, and the delighted referee had counted a speedy "three" when the bell rung. Kid Roberts was a very tired boy when he slumped heavily on his stool, and it was another round for Mr. Oliver—and the charmin' referee.
I must say the outlook was what you call dark when I commence workin' frantically on the Kid durin' the one minute rest and I could of knocked myself off for ever lettin' him go in against the champion with only one fight under his belt after his long lay off. It was the Kid's own fault, of course, but that was no time to tell him as he sprawled wearily on the stool, starin' with dull eyes at the ocean of excitedly workin' faces around the ring. The punch which floored him just before the gong had hurt plenty and as I smeared collodion on a nasty cut over his left eye I whispered to him to stall through the next round and use his dazzlin' footwork to keep away from the champion's right.
The Kid didn't seem to hear me at all, just mutterin' somethin' about the unfairness of the referee. I suddenly felt somebody pullin' at my pants leg and shoutin' my name. As I glance down with a appropriate remark, a newspaper guy passes up a envelope to me. It's a cablegram to Kid Roberts from Dolores, his wife; I see that when I rip it open and gaze at the signature first, a habit of mine. Aha, I think to myself, just what the Kid needs—the word from his wife that she's rootin' for him to go in and win! Like a book, what I mean, hey? I hold the message in front of the fast-recoverin' Kid's eyes. He shakes his head a couple of times to clear it, looks at me with a puzzled frown and then reads the cable. Slowly his teeth comes together with a click and his jaw sets hard. He scowls across the ring at Jim Oliver, and, suddenly pushin' me away, he jumps off the stool, though there's eight seconds before the bell, and stands there waitin' for it with the impatience of a prancin' two-year-old at the barrier. This eagerness to get at it from a guy which flopped on his stool apparently all but out at the end of the last round puts the crowd in a fresh frenzy and nobody heard the gong for the third frame but the fighters themselves!
This is the cheering cable which Dolores sent her hard-pressed hubby to show she was standin' by him and to hop him up to win:
News of your disgraceful affair with chorus girl has reached me wonder at your assurance in asking me for encouragement it is my earnest wish that you lose maybe that will prevent you from further embarrassing me by boxing again. Dolores.
Hot scrapple! Should I only of read that thing first, Kid Roberts would never of cast a eye over it. Imagine sendin' that kind of a pannin' to a guy losin'
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Scene from the "Kid of Madrid."
a tough fight! I throwed up my hands and got the old towel ready to toss in if Kid Roberts got floored more than once, because I think between Jim Oliver, the referee, and that dizzy cable, why, it's all over except the count.
If what I don't know was grapes, I'd have more grapes than Mr. Concord himself! That cable seems to act on the Kid like a cold shower on a heavy sleeper. He met the highly confident Oliver before that baby was half-ways out of his corner. Sidesteppin' a left lead, the Kid swung a right and left to the head that crashed the champ reelin' against the ropes and simply panicked the mob. Oliver was groggy and tried to clinch, but that didn't fit in with the Kid's idea of matters and a short left hook to the heart again staggered the champ, whilst a sizzlin' right to the mouth brought the blood in a stream. In Oliver's corner they are shoutin' enough advice to their man to solve Germany's problem! The punch-drunk champion managed to flounder into a clinch, but that was simply a bad case of out of the fryin' pan into the fire, because once in close Kid Roberts banged away at Oliver's ribs till they're as red as any blaze you ever seen.
Oliver throws the referee a glance which would of melted a iceberg, and that bozo, which had been actin' like he was hypnotized by the terrible execution Kid Roberts was doin', snapped out of it and shoved the men apart. He likewise "warns" Kid Roberts—for what I don't know. The champ slipped to his knees on the break and that was the tip-off on the shape he's in.
Oh, the crowd—you should have heard 'em by this time! The Kid calmly waits till Oliver gets to his feet, ducked a wild right jab, and then sent Oliver down on all fours with a right swing. Oliver took "nine" and got up, a set-up for a tenth-rater. Kid Roberts was no tenth-rater! He carefully measured the reelin' champ with his left and I howled for him to keep the next one up, but how could he hear me with thousands of lunatics screechin' wildly: "Knock him dead! Knock him, Kid, knock him!"
Roberts then sunk his right to the laces under Oliver's heart and down goes Mr. Champion on his face. That punch was as clean as a hound's tooth, but bellers of "Foul! Foul!" comes immediately from Oliver's corner and the gamblers around the ring. This reaches the battered ears of the sick champion and he rolls over on his back, twistin' his face in a knot and pressin' both gloves against his stomach.
He's actin' his head off, the big boloney. If he was fouled, so was Cornwallis! But the framers keep up the cry and in a second half the crowd is yellin' "Foul!" and the other half is screamin' for the referee to go on with the count. The referee hesitates a instant, then waves Kid Roberts to his corner and awards the fight to the prostrate and fairly beaten "champion" on a foul!
Kid Roberts stares at the referee like he thinks that guy has went crazy, then he looks at me like he won't believe his own ears without a witness. But the maddened shrieks of the boys out in front which has bet on him convinces him that there's no question about him bein' gypped out of the title. For a minute I thought the enraged Kid Roberts would take a wallop at the white-faced referee and he did take a step toward him, but I jumped over the ropes and grabbed him. Some of the newspaper guys is at my heels and they're as burnt up as we are.
"That's positively the worst robbery I ever saw and I've been covering fights for fifteen years!" says the guy from the Whirl. "That's the kind of thing that kills boxing. Believe me, boys, I'll pan that decision every day in every way for the next six months!"
"You should be world's champion right now!" adds the Sphere sport editor to the boilin' Kid.
The boos and hisses outside the ropes drowns out whatever he might of answered. There's a young revolution goin' on and the coppers has got to escort Mr. Referee to safety. Two-thirds of the frothin' customers mills after us to the dressin' room, slappin' Kid Roberts on the back and assurin' us that we won from here to Liverpool. The Kid says nothin'. He's speechless with rage and disappointment.
When we get inside the room we're greeted by Ptomaine Joe, which had certainly put in one rough evenin' himself—knocked out by One-Jab McGoldberg and throwed out by the coppers. The battlin' chef looks the photograph of gloom, but he brightens a bit when he sees us.
"How did you make out?" he asks eagerly.
"Shut up!" I snarls. "I think you're a Jonah. I got a good mind to crate you back to that lumber camp, you big stiff! They tell us we lose on a foul!"
"That's tough!" says Ptomaine Joe. "Very tough. But it's better than the way I lost, ain't it? What am I goin' to get for that brawl of mine?"
"Cut yourself a piece of cake!" I sneers. "You ought to be glad to get immunity—if you can fight, I can fly!" Then I turned to Kid Roberts. "I hope you're all cured of boxin' boys which insults girls!" I says bitterly. "If you had waited for Oliver till you was right, we"
A soft rappin' interrupts me. Ptomaine Joe opens the door and falls back with a gasp. Our visitor is no less than the cause of all the trouble—Miss Désirée Collet! She seems to of been weepin', and why shouldn't she? I presented her with a scowl, and, greatly surprised, Kid Roberts reaches for his bath: robe.
"Oh, I am so sorry I lie to you!" she says. "Quelle honte!"
"What d'ye mean you lied?" I asks, as Kid Roberts appears dumb.
"J'en suis très fachée!" says Désirée.
"That's the cat's whiskers!" I says impatiently. "Speak my talk—does this look like Paris?"
"I tol' you Monsieur Olivaire insult me," explains Désirée to the frownin' Kid, snubbin' me and dabbin' at her eyes with a inch of lace. "Zat was wrong! He says nozzing to me. I leave zat act because mon père weel not let me wear zat costume zat you no like!"
There's plenty silence for a minute, except Désirée's sobs, and then the Kid speaks up. "Why did you lie to me at all?" he says coldly, but it seems to me his eyes is grinnin'.
"I weesh to see if you weel fight for Désirée!" says this remarkable young woman, hangin' her head.
You could of slapped me over with a telegraph pole. The little—eh—imp!
"Désirée," says Kid Roberts, pretendin' to be red-headed, but I know he's fakin' it. "I am angry and surprised at you. You should be taken home and—and spanked! If I promise not to have you punished as you so richly deserve, will you return to St. Thérèse with your father?"
"Mais oui!" says Désirée tearfully.
Kid Roberts looks greatly relieved, and I'm simply overboard with delight. The Kid turns to Ptomaine Joe, which ain't been able to unfasten his eyes from Désirée since she come in the room. "Joe," says the Kid sternly, "take this young lady to her hotel, explain matters to her father and arrange for their tickets so that they may leave to-morrow. I put her in your charge!"
Ptomaine Joe looks like somebody had just proved to him that he's the rightful heir to Yellowstone Park. He gulps and grabs the Kid's hand.
"Say!" he busts out. "They can't tell me you ever fouled anybody. C'mon, Désirée!"