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 So in that way the time dragged along with Kid Roberts a world's champion, but unable to do his stuff through lack of competition. As far as business was concerned, he was just like a salesman with a line of celluloid cuffs travellin' through Hades! A brace of weeks in vaudeville, a movie and two or three exhibition bouts brung in a few much needed thousands and then we found months of enforced idleness starin' us in the pan. No foolin', the panic was on!

One mornin', haggard and worn from a night full of everything but sleep, I bust into the Kid's room at the Broadway drum we're floppin' at. Ptomaine Joe's already there, givin' the champ his mornin' rub, which come right after the cold shower. Kid Roberts was feelin' pretty low. His handsome face is gloomy and broodin' and he greets me with a paltry nod. Bein' too high calibre to notice them things—which is why I remember it—I returned a brilliant smile.

"Kid," I says, "I've just had a rush of ideas to the brain, with the results that I got a wow of a scheme for us to click off heavy money, without even riskin' the title!"

"Perfect!" busts out Ptomaine, before Kid Roberts can answer, "I always did want to get into the bootleggin' game and"

"Be yourself, you ignorant monkey and don't talk out of turn!" I cut him off, with a touch of old world politeness. "Every time you open your mouth, a first-class idiot speaks!"

"Except the times," remarks Ptomaine, pensively.