Page:Fighting Back (1924).pdf/186

 marked that he was thoroughly ashamed of himself for what he called a "beastly display of temper!" Chili sauce—look what they done to him!

When Barnaby fin'ly comes to life, Kid Roberts tells him who he really is and just why he pretended to be a poet at Hermit Inn. He likewise adds that Barnaby's a good, game fighter, and the still dazed Barnaby weakly shakes his hand.

I now look for Eva to throw her arms around the handsome neck of the victorious Kid Roberts, and so would you, now wouldn't you? She was more than addicted to him when he was a despised "poet" and now that he's turned out to be a standard size 576, lot 749, 68-carat Hero, why, the clinch seems positive. We all expect it—it's on the cards!

Never again will I expect no women to run to the chart. They don't, and that's all there is to it! When little Eva heard that Kid Roberts was simply a prize fighter and not no composer of passionate pomes, she drew away from him like he had smallpox, runs to the dejected and muchly battered Jim Barnaby and—kisses him! Can you tie that?

The Kid views 'em and laughs, then he unties me and Ptomaine. We immediately look around for the false alarm which posed as Kid Roberts, but that gent has went away from there! We never saw him since, and who wants to?

Ptomaine stretches his cramped arms and watches Eva and Barnaby with a gloomy frown on his homely pan.

"Any of you guys feel like steppin'?" he snarls to