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 bined knowledge of the art of boxin' could be wrote on a ant's nose. You gotta long ways to go yet before I throw you into a ring with a fighter! You'd be a set-up right now for the first good man you met, and I ain't gonna have you knocked kickin' yet. You been shook and hurt, but you ain't never experienced the delightful sensation of bein' socked to dreamland, and if I can help it you never will! A knockout right now and you'd prob'ly be through with the ring—I know you temperamental babies; I had a stable full of 'em once."

He takes a coupla turns around the room to think this over, and then he stops and looks at me.

"What you say may be true," he says, kinda cold, "but it doesn't change my decision! If I'm as bad as that, then I'll never be a success as a fighter, and I may as well give it up and try something else. However, I want a fair test first, and I haven't had one yet. Match me with a good man or I'll do it myself. That's my last word!"

I seen the boy had worked himself up into a fit of nerves, and it would be terrible silly to argue with him then.

"C'mon," I says, "we'll take a walk around to Billy Morgan's gym and see some of the boys workin' out. Maybe you can pick up a coupla tricks for yourself watchin'—"

"We have no time to waste," he cut me off. "I'll never be a champion by hanging around anybody's training quarters."

"C'mon, C'mon," I says, "lay off to-day and you'll be champion a day later then—what's the difference?"