Page:Fighting blood (IA fightingblood00witw).pdf/263

 At's the real McCoy you got there, brother," he says. "Comes right down from Canada!"

"I thought it must be imported ginger ale," I says. "Let's have some more!"

Well, I have plenty drinks of this Canadian ginger ale, and I commence to feel better every minute. My troubles and worries has dropped away like magic and to tell you the truth I never forgot that in a few hours I am going to step into a ring and defend my title. I am having lots of fun and I feel like dancing, which is funny, when you take into consideration that I can't dance a stroke and never could or wanted to till that night.

I have no more than got out of my chair, when somebody grabs my arm and flops me back into it. It's Nate, and his face is as white as a sheet.

"You big stiff!" he says to me, "Have you went cuckoo? D'ye know they's twenty-five thousand people out there at the ball park waiting to see you fight Kid Christopher in less'n three hours?"

"Who's Kid Chris-Christopher?" I grins, and I'm kind of dizzy in my nut. Roma has slipped away into the crowd somewheres.

"Holy mackerel," whispers Nate, "you're lit up like a church! D'ye think you can get it through your skull 'at Rags Dempster and this Jane has framed you? They got you soused so's you either can't show up to fight Kid Christopher, or you'll be a mark for him if you do. You have tossed away your title and throwed down your friends by this night's work, fellah!"

I don't seem to be able to get what he's talking about.