through the kind attention of Mr. Frankie Jackson. However, the argument I put up against the king of the middleweights caused a serious epidemic of bashfulness among the other contenders in that class as far as a scuffle with me was concerned. When Nate pleads with Frankie to give us another crack at his crown, why, the champ just laughs and says if we want to fight to get a job on the Dublin police force. In twenty-four battles I had win twenty by knockouts and, like Dempsey and many another good boy which has too much stuff for the rest of the field, it seems I have fought myself out of a job.
So, giving up all hopes of getting work in the middleweigh division, I tell Nate to go out shopping and get me a nice, fresh, light heavyweight somewheres and I'll be pleased to slap him silly for a reasonable amount of pennies. I was then twenty years old, stood five foot ten and three-quarters in my nude feet and still had trouble keeping down to 158 ringside—about 164 being my proper poundage—and it seems, like London I'm still growing. Well, Bob Fitzsimmons only weighed a few pounds more when he was bowling over some of the best heavyweights of his time and I got as many freckles as Fitz ever had!
Don't fall a victim to the idea that I spent the three months my ruined jaw was healing sitting in my room knitting doilies or nothing like that. In the contrary, what I done with them ninety days was to take a course in a New York business school. I suppose that's a laugh, hey? A prize fighter studying the mysteries of shorthand, advertisement writing, and salesmanship!
