I step in under it, crossing my right flush to his jaw. This punch should of knocked him cold. It did!
I am light heavyweight champion of America, but I ain't got a dime to my name.
Mr. Brock and Spence is the first ones to greet me when I climb down under the ropes after my one-round win. Mr. Brock grabs my glove and pumps my hand up and down till my arm's sore. Then he tells me Spence has wised him up to what happened to me when Knight Errant stumbled in the stretch. He claims he feels more or less responsible for me going to the cleaners, as his son laid me on the horse, and he wants to make good my twenty thousand out of his own pocket. As if I'd let him!
"But, you poor devil—" begins Mr. Brock, when I says no.
"I ain't no poor devil, Mister Brock, don't call me that!" I says, quietly. "I hate that expression! I don't want to be cried over. I'm young and healthy and I got some valuable experience now that I didn't have before. In a way, I'm glad I lost that money. It's cured me forever of gambling, that's a cinch! If I'd of won that bet, I might be hanging around the race tracks till I lost my ambition and a few other things which is more than money. I'll start right in again to-morrow doing my stuff, and"
"But you haven't a penny!" interrupts Mr. Brock impatiently. "You are just where you started!"
"Oh, no,'m not just where I started, Mister Brock," I grins, throwing out my chest. "You forget—I'm a champion!"
