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 Nothin' would of gave Monsieur Kennedy greater delight than havin' you as his guest in the middle of a twenty-four-foot ring! I'm the baby that crabbed the thing, and it hurt me more than it does you, because we was to drag down six hundred fish for that mêlée, and the only way we can make six hundred dollars right now is to steal a counterfeitin' layout somewheres!".

"Then why the devil did you cancel that bout?" he roars, advancin' on me with a four-alarm fire in each eye. "Is this a crude preliminary to your tellin' me you're ready to' quit me because I've been knocked out?"

The Kid was towerin' over me, his fine chin shoved out at a fightin' angle, and that bone-crushin' right dyin' with impatience to land on my jaw. I stood up, put my hands in my pockets and looked him over quietly.

"Listen!" I says. "I never quit anything or anybody in my life; that's why I'm broke—which shows the copy books is all wrong! I'll tell you why I called off your return quarrel with Al Kennedy, and if you laugh at me whilst I'm tellin' it I'll take a clout at you myself. It was maniacal on my part to listen to you before and send you in against a guy as tough as that, instead of waitin' till you had a few more real battles under your belt, and I been sore at myself for doin' it ever since. You and me was raised in different hothouses, Kid—the nearest I ever been to college was the time I went up to New Haven to go behind Young Evans when he fought K. O. Hinds. I passed