up himself, with the results that in a very few minutes they are at it hot and heavy. When he fin'ly tore himself away, they was on the same kind of terms as Germany and France and Kid Roberts come back gloomy, nervous and highly unstrung. This not only burnt me up, but it worried me sick, as I'm afraid it will affect the Kid's work when he steps in the ring with Guardsman Blue.
Well, when I returned to the camp the day I seen Dolores, my ears is annoyed by the followin' ballad, sang in a voice which would be a decided asset to a train-caller:
"Oh, if the ocean was whiskey and I was a mallard, I said mallard, I mean duck. If the ocean was whiskey and I was a mallard duck. I'd dive to the bottom and I never would come up!"
That, ladies and gentlemen, for no good reason was issuin' from the boisterous throat of Mr. Ptomaine Joe, who was carded to swap wallops with a gent who made a clean breast of bein' "Rough House" Williams, colored heavyweight champion of Mt, McKinley, in the semi-windup to the Kid Roberts-Guardsman Blue affray. When I come up to him, Ptomaine's got both his ham-like hands buried to the hilt in the brine bucket, toughenin' 'em up for his comin' hippodrome. This little incident kind of startled me, as all the trainin' I ever saw Ptomaine do for a fight before was to get his neck shaved.
"Howdy!" he greets me. "Hey, listen—they's a
