Page:Fighting blood (IA fightingblood00witw).pdf/132

 trouble! This fightin' for nothing is out, git me: Let the stevedores do 'at stuff. Next time somebody calls you names, make out you don't know 'em!"

Well, as the time for this scuffle with Shifty McTague draws near, Nate cuts my workouts down to a few rounds light sparring and a two-mile run with a rubdown every day. This gives me quite a little time to myself, and I use it in trying to get a line on what I'm good at, if anything, apart from box fighting. I'm still cuckoo over this encyclopedia and I pester Nate and Kayo Kelly to read it till they're fit to be tied! Nate says he'll start in on the encyclopedia the minute he gets through reading the telephone book. He can't stop now, he says, because he's right in the middle of a chapter called "Pay Stations," and it's as exciting as being chased by a grizzly. Kayo says any doctor will tell you that reading is bad for the eyes, adding that he bets I'm selling encyclopedias as a side line.

That crack of Kayo's gives me a large idea. Why not sell encyclopedias as a side line? I got to try my luck at something, unless I want to wind up as a pork-and-bean pug, which I didn't, by no means! The more I think about it, the more I get hopped up on the idea. I figure that once the people of Drew City finds out what a swell novel a encyclopedia is, why, they'll sell like ice water would sell on the Sara Desert. Judy gets all excited too when I put the matter up to her, and Spence slaps me on the back and says he'll take at least one set without looking!

That decides me. I get a set of encyclopedias for