Page:Fighting Back (1924).pdf/355

 a quickly arranged bout with Bill McCann, a fearful set-up hand-picked by the careful promoters of the Arabian's fight with Kid Roberts. The reason for this preliminary showin' of the dizzy sheik's wares, was that the hard-boiled sport writers insisted on the rights of the fans to see a sample of how Mr. Thomas conducted himself in a prize ring before payin' famine prices to witness his collision with the world's champion. Both me and Kid Roberts was muchly pleased when we hear that the Arab is trainin' behind locked doors and won't even let the newspaper guys in to see him workout. That kind of stuff is usually the tip-off that a fighter's got somethin' either him or the promoters wishes to hide from the boxin' sharps—in other words, that he's not so good.

The Jack Thomas-Bill McCann hippodrome lasted just fifty-nine seconds, the Arab knockin' the badly scared McCann dead with a punch. In fact, the "fight" was over so swiftly that nobody had a chance to get the faintest line on the Arabian scrapper's ability to box or take punishment. There seemed to be no doubt that the foreign importation could hit, but what he would do against a seasoned ring general and master boxer like Kid Roberts, which would be steppin' around him and exchangin' blow for blow, was somethin' else again.

I'll tell you what he done!

There was only a few which recalled that Bill McCann was a twenty-eighth rater, but thousands remembered that the Arab had stopped him with a single right to the jaw. Therefore, the overflow