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 bantams and returned to New York before I got word from him. Mike unexpectedly called on me at our flat one evening while Hazel was at the show shop doing her evening chores. Honestly, I was astounded at the change in his appearance and manner as I shook his limp hand. Instead of being pardonably proud of his brand new title, Mike looked peaked and sank into a chair with a gloomy sigh. You can picture my further astonishment when I congratulated him on being a champion, only to see him burst into tears!

"What on earth is the matter?" I asked him anxiously.

"That title ain't worth a dime to me, kid!" he moans. "Not a thin dime!"

"How come?" I gasped.

"Kid," he says, "this is a tough world! I cop the champeenship in my twelfth fight—ain't that a crime?"

"I don't make you at all!"

"You don't, hey?" groans Michael. "Well, then, listen—my first fight as champ will be my thirteenth battle, won't it? How in the name of Lloyd's George can I win that one?"

I stared at him for a minute and then sat down beside him, not knowing whether to bust out laughing or to be sorry for this poor little superstition-bound egg. I tried to argue him out of his silly belief that he couldn't possible win bout number thirteen, but I might as