Page:Fighting blood (IA fightingblood00witw).pdf/293

 coat to hold me back, but I shook him off. I also shook off a couple of gents which has went fear-crazy and wants to climb through the roof, using a couple of women for ladders. Short right and left hooks discouraged them babies and in another minute I am on the stage with Judy. She's trying to drag out some girl which has fainted away in a swoon.

Rags Dempster, the hero of the play, has disappeared and so has all the other brave actors. I got Judy outside and I got to snatch her up and carry her out bodily, because she refuses to leave the young lady which is peacefully sleeping on the floor. I went back and got the fainting beauty and also Mrs. Willcox and then I just took 'em as they come, this time with the kind assistance of Knockout Kelly, Nate, Lem Garfield, and a couple of other guys which figured what's a few burns between friends? After a while Engine Company No. 6 arrived, and as long as they was there they figured they might as well put out the fire, so that's what they done.

Our brand-new stage, movie screen, curtains, and all this sort of thing was simply burned out of existence—quite some financial loss and don't think it wasn't! But the toughest break of all for me was the place I got burned. Just imagine what would happen to Katherine MacDonald if her face got burned, or John McCormack if his throat got burned, and you'll get the idea of what it means when I tell you I got badly burned on the things which is my fortune—my hands! They're just a puffed mass of raw blisters and in less than three weeks I got to step into the ring