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 "See if I care!" grins Eddie, and I beat it, slammin' the door on his laughin': "Happy Arbor Day!"

That was the tip-off, of course, that Toledo Eddie hadn't the faintest intentions of lettin' Bob Young fight Kid Roberts if there was any way out of it. Both Knockout Ford and Fred Fleming was as tough as a year in jail. I'd seen 'em go and I knew what they had—and it was enough, don't think it wasn't! A month before, they'd stepped fifteen rounds to a gory enough draw to of satisfied Nero! Toledo Eddie figured he was sittin' pretty by makin' us meet 'em before fightin' his champ. This jazzbo thought it a cinch that one or the other would knock the Kid off and thus put him in the discard as a challenger. In any event, the time we'd spend in makin' and trainin' for these two matches would lay the angry sport writers off Young and further postpone a bout with Kid Roberts.

I was still burnt up when I dashed back to our hotel and give Kid Roberts the low-down on matters. The nervous Kid has been impatiently pacin' the room waitin' to hear the result of the interview, whilst the 200-pound Ptomaine Joe was writin' a burlesque on a letter to some cutey. Just as I come in, Ptomaine looks up with a goofy grin on his weird pan and craves to know how many "u's" they is in the word "love."

I throwed a chair cushion at Ptomaine and immediately laid Toledo Eddie's proposition before Kid Roberts, expectin' him to go right up in flames like I did. My idea was to turn Eddie down cold, ask the newspapers to call the public's attention to the way Young