Page:The Leather Pushers (1921).pdf/79

 a certain time in our lives when all of us gets that feelin', usually durin' the first seventy-five years. But, Kid, you gotta learn your trade and work your way up in the fight game the same as in anything else. You can't make a guy a plumber by simply handin' him a piece of lead pipe and a monkey wrench. You're a pretty good prospect right now, but that's all—just a prospect. Them two fights you had don't mean nothin'. You got a hefty kick in each paw, and you seem to be able to take it, but you're as green as 350 Irish flags. You get rattled under fire, you squander wallops on the air, your defense wouldn't puzzle a one-armed blind man, and you telegraph every clout you got in stock before you pull it. When you get bounced you jump right up instead of takin' a count till your head clears, and you got a bad habit of lettin' a punch-drunk burn dive into a clinch with you instead of shakin' him off and finishin' him. Ring generalship, that's what you're minus, and the only way you can get it is by experience. You gotta be rated along, not rushed. That's what a manager's for. Many a promisin' kid has been ruined at the start by bein' overmatched. As for these guys lookin' like gorillas—well, none of 'em claims to be chorus girls, and you don't have to take 'em out to dinner—you get paid to beat 'em up!"

The Kid ain't said nothin' whilst I'm pourin' this into him, but his face is a movie.

"If I'm as rotten as that," he sneers fin'ly, "how do you account for the fact that I won my first two professional fights by knockouts?"

"You licked a pair of tramps," I says, "who's com-