Page:Fighting Back (1924).pdf/318

 they was, until—but I'll get around to that later, as the guy on the carousel says.

Personally, Kid Roberts hoped and prayed that his kind of balky helpmeet wouldn't click at the polls and thus dispense with her political ambitions which had widened the gap between 'em. It was the Kid's firm intention to throw away his boxin' gloves and call it a day after the Guardsman Blue muss and one other we had scheduled should he manage to slap down the hard-hittin' Englishman. These two bouts figured to net Kid Roberts more than half a million and with five hundred grand in his kick he'd certainly be sittin' pretty to start life anew with Dolores.

Well, anyways, I dashed into Manhattan the day after I got that note from Dolores and taxied to her glitterin' palace on Fifth Avenue, arrivin' there promptly at three. I hadn't cracked nothin' to Kid Roberts about this conference, on the account his spouse had ordered secrecy, but I don't mind tellin' you that I didn't enjoy my position! A friend of 'em both, the best I could look for was the worst of it, like anybody else which steps into a family quarrel either by request or on their own hook. It's a hobby of mine to lay off them affairs, for a man which gets himself mixed up in somebody else's domestica! troubles is a lunatic of the first water!

As usual, Dolores looks more like a million dollars than four $250,000 bills when a frozen-faced butler buttles me in to her in the parlor. Although she's a face card in the society deck, she's never high-hatted me. She tells me I'm lookin' well. I admit the charge