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 the front of my vest. "Then one scrap for a couple of hundred thousand and I'm through! I'll throw my title to the pack and let 'em fight it, while I'll—"

"Whilst you'll blow your end of the gate, go broke and come back to the hit-and-run game again!" I butts in. "Listen, young feller, don't feed me none of that desertin'-the-ring-stuff—I was engaged in the gift of pilotin' pugs when you thought a uppercut was a euchre term. Once the heavy money, the thrill of landin' a perfectly timed right cross, the screamin' mob; the bein' constantly in the public's eye, and all the rest of it gets into your arteries, you can't throw it off like a old coat—and that's that! No, sir, son; right up to the time the embalmer says: 'Well, I guess I'll finish this one and then go home!' you'll be tellin' your fellow ghosts that you could of licked the current crop of heavies in the same ring if you hadn't bumped off. Ever hear of a ex-champ that didn't try to stage a comeback, regardless of age or condition? Take a squint at the books—John L., Corbett, Fitzsimmons, Jeff, Bat Nelson, Abe Attell, Young Corbett, Lavigne, McGovern, Gans, Ritchie, Wolgast, Coulon, Papke, and the etc. All of them boys was champs amongst champs and all of 'em was tryin' to crawl out of the pugilistic ash heap back to the calcium for years after they'd been nothin' but a faint memory to the mob!"

"Just a second!" flings the Kid over his shoulder, rippin' off his collar and draggin' out the shavin' apparatus. "There's no comparison between myself and those men, either in boxing ability or—well, let's call it temperament. Without exception, all those fellows you rattled off were born fighters—it was