Page:The Leather Pushers (1921).pdf/97

 room was—a mirror. When he seen there wasn't a scratch on his face, he grinned.

"Sorry!" he says. "Are you through?"

"What d'ye mean through?" I snarls. "We're just beginnin ' —or maybe you got enough, hey?"

The grin gets broader.

"I had to get it some time, I suppose," he says, kinda thoughtful. Then: "I think this fight will do me a lot of good—I learned a pile of things while it lasted. You know, frankly, in spite of this reversal to-night, I feel in my heart that I can whip that fellow!"

"There's no question about it!" I says. "You'd of flattened him sure to-night if you hadn't been so damn careful of gettin' your face mussed up. Why, you had him—"

"Get him for me again!" he butts in. "I'll start conditioning myself again to-morrow!"

Not bad for a guy which has just been knocked, hey?

I turned on the old thinker again that night and several days later I signed Roberts to fight Kennedy six rounds in Philly, the middle of the followin' month. I had to take $600. By a strange coincidence, I also brung a new sparrin' partner around to Billy Morgan's to work out with the Kid. This baby and Roberts had been sparrin' lightly for a few minutes, when who appears in the doorway but Estelle Van Horn, which had selected that day to see for herself how her boy friend evaded the poorhouse. I called to the Kid, and he turned his head. The other guy prob'ly didn't hear me, because on the instant he