Page:Fighting blood (IA fightingblood00witw).pdf/155

 my right arm at the box office the night of the fight. I have got to make 158 ringside, while he can come in at catchweights. The muss is to be twelve rounds at Jersey City where no referee's decision is allowed, so the only way I can win the title is to knock Frankie stiff. By a odd coincidence, this happens to be my intentions so I don't moan over that part of it. The champ is to get $25,000, win, lose or draw, while my wages is to be $3,500, and how Nate ever pried that out of them hard-boiled promoters is a mystery to me to this day!

I train for this scuffle at Drew City, where I trained for all my brawls and nearly everybody in the town drops in every day to see us work out. From three to five in the afternoon, when Nate lets 'em in for fifteen cents a head, the place was just packed.

But there's one guy which didn't show up at the training camp no more and that's Rags Dempster. This dizzy dumbell was too busy hanging around Judy or calling her up on the phone. I couldn't dope out how he really stood with her—one minute she'd curl her lip at him, the next minute he seems to be sitting pretty with her. I try hard to keep out of his way, for this bird affected me like a red shirt affects a bull. I don't hunt trouble, because when I get steamed up I can't laugh matters off, something has got to fall—the other fellow, or in the contrary!

Amongst the assorted customers which came into the gym to watch us do our stuff was Lem Garfield. At that time Lem was still what Spence Brock called a "miss and thrope." I pass that one. All I know is