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 Punch McGazzati let 'em both go at once. A fool and his money is soon parted!"

And, with bowed head, the battered Ptomaine stumbled on amidst the razzin' of the jeerin' mob.

At 10 p. m.—the hour set for the principals in the big fight to enter the ring—there was no sign of Kid Roberts, but Knockout Ford comes down the aisle with his handlers and climbs through the ropes, hailed with a wild storm of cheers. Sun-darkened face heavily vaselined to avoid as may cuts as possible, brawny body cocoa-buttered over the rollin' bulgin' muscles, he looked ready—and that word covers it all! The referee and the announcer comes in and talks matters over with the timekeepers. Ptomaine turns up, his swollen pan a mass of court plaster, to go in Kid Roberts's corner. I killed a little time by walkin' over and carefully examinin' the bandages on Ford's hands and inspectin' the br-and-new gloves layin' in their box at the middle of the ring. Still no sign of Kid Roberts and, believe me, I'm pretty low! Almost as worried and nervous as I am as he looks over the sea of excited faces, the promoter paces up and down outside the ring. He'd never phoned me about the referee at all! The newspaper guys, busy beside their clickin' telegraph instruments sendin' in the preliminary stuff, are askin' me what's the matter with the Kid? Where is he? The crowd takes that important question up with a continuous howl and stampin' of 35,000 pairs of impatient feet.

Suddenly the loud buzzin' of a propeller rises above the noise of the mob and a airplane circles over the