Page:The Leather Pushers (1921).pdf/113

 nervous as a two-year-old at the post—pale, tremblin', and lickin' his lips till if you didn't know him you'd think he was yellah. Now he laid there grinnin' and kiddin' with the handlers, the most cool and collected guy in the clubhouse. All I was afraid of was that he was kiddin' himself with this stuff and might collapse on me or somethin' when I got him into the ring—I seen that happen many's the time before with other guys. But—well, wait!

When we pushed and milled down the aisle to the ring it seemed to me that, if all the guys which was packed in there had voted against prohibition, it would be a felony to-day to call for a glass of water! They had a rule against smokin', and as a result the smoke was so thick we got all the sensations of a fireman on that brief trip to the battle ground. Kennedy and his handlers had already started down from the opposite direction, and the yell which went up from them lunatics all around us was just one continuous roar, in which it was impossible to pick out any words—nothin' but plain sound, that's all. This here demonstration was neither for Roberts or Kennedy, particularly. It was caused by the same thing which makes the lions in the zoo beller when the keepers start in with the meat.

There was little time wasted in stallin' around, and five minutes after the men entered the ring they was standin' together in the center, gettin' their instructions. Then come the first real thrill—for me, anyways!

When the referee gets through with his monologue about not hittin' on the breakaways, and the like,