Page:Fighting Back (1924).pdf/74

 Oh, the crowd—you should have heard 'em by this time! The Kid calmly waits till Oliver gets to his feet, ducked a wild right jab, and then sent Oliver down on all fours with a right swing. Oliver took "nine" and got up, a set-up for a tenth-rater. Kid Roberts was no tenth-rater! He carefully measured the reelin' champ with his left and I howled for him to keep the next one up, but how could he hear me with thousands of lunatics screechin' wildly: "Knock him dead! Knock him, Kid, knock him!"

Roberts then sunk his right to the laces under Oliver's heart and down goes Mr. Champion on his face. That punch was as clean as a hound's tooth, but bellers of "Foul! Foul!" comes immediately from Oliver's corner and the gamblers around the ring. This reaches the battered ears of the sick champion and he rolls over on his back, twistin' his face in a knot and pressin' both gloves against his stomach.

He's actin' his head off, the big boloney. If he was fouled, so was Cornwallis! But the framers keep up the cry and in a second half the crowd is yellin' "Foul!" and the other half is screamin' for the referee to go on with the count. The referee hesitates a instant, then waves Kid Roberts to his corner and awards the fight to the prostrate and fairly beaten "champion" on a foul!

Kid Roberts stares at the referee like he thinks that guy has went crazy, then he looks at me like he won't believe his own ears without a witness. But the maddened shrieks of the boys out in front which has bet on him convinces him that there's no question