anything. Nothing she asks sounds unreasonable to me. So, without thinking or caring about the consequences, in fact, thinking only that if I fight Martin I lose Judy, I give her my word I will cancel the bout, although it's already been heavily advertised and I got a ten-thousand-dollar appearance forfeit up. A fellow in love is a hot sketch, ain't he?
The next morning I move back to Mrs. Willcox's from the Commercial House, a thing which gives Knockout Kelly and Nate a lot of laughs. Nate says watching me and Judy is more fun than watching a circus, but when I tell him I ain't got the slightest intentions of boxing Jack Martin, why, all the fun disappears as far as Nate is concerned. At first he just simply won't believe me, but when I convince him I am not kidding he goes triple cuckoo, raving around the house like a maniac. Two or three times we nearly come to blows and would of did so, only I don't want to cuff Nate by no means, though some of his comments about me running out of the Martin match would of made a rabbit cuff a bulldog.
When the sport writers recovered from their amazement at my second resignation from the ring they went after me with their heavy artillery in earnest. What they called me before was affectionate terms of endearment alongside of the way they referred to me now. "Cheese champion," "false alarm," and "yellow" is just a few of the labels they tacked after my name in their columns, and many of 'em recognized Jack Martin's claim to the light-heavyweight championship since I refused to defend the title.
