Page:The Leather Pushers (1921).pdf/37

 Fresne couldn't take it and would quit like a dog the minute he got hurt. Then the bell rung.

Du Fresne was off his stool and half-way across the ring before the Kid had hardly straightened up. He smashed a left to the body that shook Roberts from stem to stern, but whilst the mob was still jumpin' up on their chairs and shriekin', the Kid feinted Du Fr sne with his own left and then shot a right hook to the head that hurled Du Fresne back a half dozen feet before he crashed down on his face. That wallop landed a bit high, or the quarrel would of been over right then and there. Du Fresne stumbled to his feet at "nine" for the simple reason that he had been told he wouldn't get a nickel if he didn't last at least a coupla rounds. Dummy screamed for the Kid to wade in and finish his man, but the yellin' and excitement upset the boy's judgment, and he allowed Du Fresne to dive into a clinch, where that thankful baby hung on glassy-eyed till the referee pried 'em apart. The Kid dropped him twice more for short counts before the bell, and Du Fresne reeled to his corner, bleedin' from the nose and mouth and practically out on his feet. Roberts didn't even have his hair mussed. The joyful mob was with him to a man. He looked a winner all over, and I figured he'd knock Du Fresne kickin' with the first wallop in the next round. Dummy jumped in and sponged the Kid's face, as happy as a girl with her first engagement ring.

The rest seemed to have done Du Fresne a lotta good, and he come out for the second innin' as fresh as a daisy, but not as good-lookin'. The way some of them tramps can recover from a beatin' that would kill