the skipper to let her stay and see the fight and fin'ly vamped herself into a ringside seat—not a unusual feat for a good looker. Angela's kind can talk themselves in or out of anything, you know that. But the kick in Angela's budget of news was that the sailors has bet the captain a month's wages that the mate will knock Kid Roberts out! She gleefully anticipated a riot if the Kid wins and thinks it's all "perfectly thrilling!" Well, we didn't think it was perfectly thrillin'—we knew it was!
One of the sailors come over and gruffly told us the rules. They were all built to order for the mate—protect yourself at all times, no blows of any nature barred, hit on the breaks and break on the captain's orders from where he was perched on the hatch, three-minute rounds, one-minute rest between each frame, the muss to last till either Kid Roberts or the mate couldn't come up for any more pastin'. It might go one round or it might go a hundred, but in any event it was to go to a finish!
The bell was a tin dishpan which a sailor smacked with a belayin pin. Another tar was timekeeper and when I says either me or Ptomaine should be one of the officials, they laughed me away. By this time, the ship was well out in the bay and rockin' like a cradle—tricky footin' that the mate was used to, but a fearful handicap to Kid Roberts! Just before the start of this strange bout, the boat dipped heavily and Kid Roberts was thrown to his knees. The sailors yelled with delight at this mishap, in joyful anticipation of what was to come. Both Angela and the
