Page:The Leather Pushers (1921).pdf/21

 five hundred bucks for your next start. How 'bout that?"

"This guy will about croak me!" gasps the Bearcat, as white as the referee's shirt should of been. "But, speakin' of makin' a showin'—I'm gonna do that thing for a coupla seconds, anyways!"

Clang! goes the bell.

A wise-lookin' bird, sittin' back of me, jumps up and yells at the Bearcat: "Rush him, kid, he ain't got nothin'!"

One-Punch Loughlin comes slowly out, grinnin' at close friends and noddin' politely to acquaintances.

The next minute two thousand innocent bystanders has gone crazy and Dummy Carney has fell into the water bucket in a dead faint!

The second the bell rung Bearcat Reed, lookin' like a guy on his way to the chair and actin' on the principle of kill or get killed, has charged half-way across the ring yellin': "Old men and cripples, get back of the ropes!" A foot from the dumfounded Loughlin, this bird, which ordinarily could out-dive all the seals in the world once he got in a ring, smashes a right to the button of Loughlin's jaw, and Dummy Carney's comin' champ hits the mat so hard I bet he was pickin' rosin outa his face for a month! The referee counted to "six," took another squint at the study in still life at his feet, and waved the dazed Bearcat to his corner. I hadda throw twelve guys outa the ring so's I could get his gloves off. A artist which could of painted the expression on Bearcat Reed's face as he sat there with his eyes and mouth as open as Central Park, gazin' at One-Punch Loughlin asleep at the switch, would