Page:The Leather Pushers (1921).pdf/46

 one of my star battlers in against them choppin' blocks. On the level, they're less worry when they're fightin' a clean, hard puncher which is fast and clever. In the first place, these bums makes your boy look bad to the crowd. They usually got a awkward, clumsy defense that makes 'em difficult to slam in a spot which will send 'em down for the night, and after you have punched one of these bimbos from pillar to post round after round, changin' the outlines of his face, but not his determination to stay the limit, the mob gets the idea that you can't hit, and they're off you!

Many a promisin' youngster has had his hopes wrecked right at the start by one of them human derelicts of the ring—them guys whose only claim to fame is that they can take it! The ambitious kid tears into 'em with everything he's got, and in a coupla rounds he's pounded 'em to a pulp, but still they keep comin' in for more. Every time he flattens 'em they bounce up like a rubber ball, till fin'ly the kid begins to get discouraged. The disappointed crowd is givin' him the raspberry, demandin' the knock-out they paid to see. His confidence fades, and he soon starts wonderin' if he's lost his wallop. He's hit this tramp so hard and often that it's like liftin' a coupla tons of lead to raise his arms, and now his hooks and jabs apparently ain't even shakin' the other guy up. In desperation the kid throws science to the winds and comes in wide open, both hands workin' for that grinnin' battered jaw—that red leer that dances before his face. This is what the tramp has waited all night for! Not havin' landed a dozen clean wallops himself, he's com-