Page:Fighting blood (IA fightingblood00witw).pdf/176

 look on his face. I crowd him to the ropes, and after missing two well-meant rights, I manage to sock home a left hook to the heart which makes him gasp and dive into a clinch. "How d'ye like him, Frankie?" bellers a elephant's voice over the continual roar.

Frankie don't like me at all, and he proves it by slamming away with both hands to my mid-section till the referee breaks us. One of Frankie's seconds yells for the champ to quit slugging with me and box me instead. Frankie nods and begins dancing around me, shooting that left into my face like a piston rod. I get sick of this and rush him, but he ain't there, and I nearly sprawl on my face when I miss a right swing. The attendance laughs and this steams me up. I took six left jabs from Frankie without a return to get home one right hook. The punch hit Frankie on the side of the head and turned him completely around, making the guys which was just laughing at me go insane screaming for a knockout.

But this baby knows too much for me! He clinches till his head clears, and then the smile comes back and so does the dance, and for the rest of the round he kept away, picking my punches out of the air and cutting me to pieces with that vicious left jab. It seems I just couldn't keep my face off it! At every opportunity I ripped rights and lefts to the body, but as this guy was always going away when the wallops landed they did little more than sting him. I rushed him again just before the bell, and took a straight right on the jaw that didn't do me a bit of good.

A left I couldn't hold back hit Frankie on the nose a