Page:Fighting Back (1924).pdf/80

 up so swift that I'm sorry to this day I didn't also insist on him takin' out a $100,000 life-insurance policy and makin' me the beneficiary!

Like all fight clubs, the Jersey City A. C.'s got a local drawin' card—a boy the matchmaker builds up with the fans by sendin' him against a set-up each week till he's got a string of K. O.'s after his name as long as a giraffe's neck. In the caseof "Honest John" Keller's abattoir, the prima donna was a inexpensive heavy entitled Tornado Tate, and Johnny wanted his house packer on the bill with Roberts and Miller so's to insure a crowd which would jam his club to the mortgages. Well, Ptomaine Joe's workin' out every day with the Kid, and this tomato is rarin' to go again, in spite of the fact that he was a total loss in his first professional fight. So when Johnny Keller says he's only got one grand to squander on the to the big fight and he's got to give Monsieur Tornado Tate $750 of that, I says I'll toss Ptomaine Joe into the ring with his man eater for the other $250. As Cain remarked to Abel, it's all fun!

In the meanwhile the society pages of the newspapers has been full of the Kid's wife's photos and her activities in this French slab, Deauville. These newspaper stories from across the boundin' main was gettin' my box fighter thoughtful, and don't think they wasn't. The particular item which ruined the Kid was a radio claimin' that a Spanish omelet by the high-soundin' title of Don Miguel Espinosa was payin' constant attention to Dolores. A dozen times a day Kid Roberts wanted to let fightin' run for the end book, pack a suit case