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 bellers. "I'll throw you your meat in good time. If I hear another peep out of any of you sapolios, I'll knock the lot of you for a trip!"

Them lumberjacks certainly must of thought Ptomaine Joe was good, because the results of that blast was instant silence!

After that things went along smoothly enough, though as a full-blooded New Yorker I never could get infatuated with attackin' them trees with a ax at six o'clock of a foggy, frosty mornin'. Me and manual labor has never been what you could call buddies. Who ever heard of a box fighter's manager workin'? On the other hand, Kid Roberts took to lumberin' like puss takes to cream. He actually seemed to like it, but then the Kid always was a pig for punishment. However, he was most positively doin' himself a world of good. His skin was commencin' to take on a healthy tan, his wind was improvin', his eyes was bright and clear and the soft fat around his belt was bein' replaced by muscles ridged like a washboard. So far I hadn't let him do no boxin' what the so ever; I wanted his body right first.

For a while I thought Désirée Collet was goin' to be quite a problem. Me and the Kid stopped in the store from time to time, buyin' gents' furnishin's and what not, and you didn't have to be no mind reader to see she was rapidly gettin' cuckoo over Kid Roberts. But in spite of their temporary bust-up, the Kid was more than in rove with his wife, and even though she had went to Europe he played the game. He'd learned a lot about the interestin' adjoinin' sex before he got wed,