TAKING THE COUNT
cut off an arm and a leg, just to get a fight with that hunk of cheese that he's managing, he's got another guess coming. I'll go into the welterweight class first!"
"Y-e-e-s," said Avery slowly, "and there isn't a welter in the country to-day that would draw a two-thousand-dollar house. I suppose we'll have to go back to the six and ten-round no-decision things, splitting the money even, and agreeing to box easy! Yah! A fine game, that is!"
"I suppose you think I ought to grab this fight with Cline?" It was more than a question; it was an accusation.
"Well," said the business manager, looking at the ceiling, for he had no wish to meet Young Sullivan's eyes just then, "the bank roll ain't very fat, Charlie. We could use a few thousand, you know, and there's more money in losing to Cline — don't get excited, kid; let me talk — than we could get by winning from a flock of pork-and-bean welters. That fight would draw forty thousand if it draws a cent. If you win — and it's no cinch that Cline will be as good as he was two years ago — we can clean up a fortune the first year, like shooting fish!"
"If I win!" said Healy bitterly. "I tell you, it'll murder me to get down to one-thirty-three! I'd have to cut the meat right off the bone to do it. You know I made one-thirty-five for Kelly, and it was all I could do to outpoint him in twenty rounds when I should have stopped him with a punch!"
[64]
