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
