Shapiro says to me after I have put Knockout Kelly on the floor: "You're all through mixin' banana punches and the like, kid—I'll get you more jack for your punches than you'll ever see here!"
I know that means he wants to make a prize fighter out of me, and then I think—why not? I have always made it the point to be healthy, and being born husky I've took the greatest of care to keep myself that way. When I been eating regular, like I had in Drew City for the past year, I stripped at 142, and if I walk under anything lower than five foot ten, why, I got to bend my head. Of course I had never done no fighting in a ring or much anywheres else either, but still I don't ever remember running home bawling because somebody picked on me. I've generally always been able to take care of myself since I've had to, and, to the best of my memory, that's been all my life.
The more I think of it whilst I'm getting dressed, the more I'm keen to say it with left hooks instead of with nut sundaes. It's a cinch I'll never set the lake ablaze whilst I'm buried in a small-town drug store, and the question which kept me awake at night when I was errand boy, newsboy, bobbing boy, and printer's boy is troubling me again. That question is, where do I go from here?
Then, again, boss boxers gets as much for mixing up two punches in a ring as I do for mixing up two million punches behind a fountain. I figure a dozen fights might give me enough jack to lay the foundation of a education and also pull a chair up to a dining-room table three times a day whilst I'm doing it. I
