“Uh-huh,” assented Rorke, unimpressed. “But say, Red, you’d ought to ‘a’ seen the way Jeff lit into him, after he’d fought his way out of that corner! He——”
“Shut up!” commanded Keegan, with the exquisite courtesy of his kind. “Here we’re landing the biggest thing we’ve ever pulled off, and you go gassing ’bout a measly dog fight! I tell you——”
“Well,” retorted Dan, nettled at his manager’s tone and still more at his total dearth of appreciation for Jeff, “I don’t see as there’s anything to put on a silk shirt for, in the bunch of news you’ve lugged home with you. When I fought Feltman, back in August, you and Bud Curly would ‘a’ had to carry me out’n the ring, heels forward, if we hadn’t been able to swing that white-in-the-face claim of foul. I’ve gone ahead some since then, I know that, but I don’t figger I’ve gone ahead far enough to stop Kid Feltman. And we can’t try the same white-face stunt a second time on him. He’ll be watching for it. So will the ref’ree, whoever he is. You act like you’d brang home a gold mine, Red. Looks to me like you’d carted back a hornets’ nest. How’s the purse going to be split? A lad like Feltman’ll want to——”
“Danny,” interposed Keegan with weary scorn, “you talk even foolisher’n you look. And you look foolisher’n any other man the Lord ever bothered to pin a face onto. I told you, a month ago, the way I was aiming to work this thing. If you’ve got more int’rest in how you’re bandaging that cur’s shoulder than in the way we’re due to make a killing, there’s no use going over it all again to you. I remember, last time, you were so busy teaching Jeff to speak for bones that you didn’t more’n half listen to me. And now I s’pose I got to say it all over again.”
He sighed. It was the sigh of a martyr. But Dan did not answer. With worried tenderness he was twining about Jeff’s hurt shoulder a festoon of witch-hazel-soaked bandage. With patience—an ostentatious and grunt-punctuated patience—Keegan waited until the first-aid task was ended and the bandaged collie was curled up at his master’s feet. Then he spoke.
“Feltman’s been after that return fight with us,” he began with laboured detail and as if talking to a mental defective, “till he’s got so he’d pretty near be willing to get into the ring with you blindfold and with both hands tied behind him. Maybe you know that, if you know anything. Which you don’t. He’s itching to square himself for that won-on-foul of ours. And I’ve been letting him itch, till he wouldn’t gag on terms. But, at that, it’s a miracle we’ve landed him. Anyone with a grain of sense ought to see through it.
“First, I juggle the carn’val crowd into making him and his manager stand for Sol Kampfmuller as ref’ree. If there’s anything Sol knows less about than ref’reeing a fight I’d like to know what it is. Being sporting ed’tor of the Chronicle here, he thinks he knows it all, and that what he don’t know he suspects. I’ve seen him ref’ree two fights. Why, that poor Ocity wouldn’t know a foul if it was printed out for him on a raised map! Anyone could get by with murder, with him as ref’ree. It’s ’most a shame to try the real classy stunts on him. Any raw work’d do.
“Feltman’s nearer a top-notcher than ever you’ll get to be in fifty years, but he’s a numbwit. You could hit him with an axe in the ring, before he’d find out he was being fouled. So there’s your comb’nation—a chucklehead ref’ree and a fair-fighting guy who don’t know how to watch out for fouls. And then there’s you, who I’ve learned to be the best lad at slick fouling in the whole business.
“Why, it’s too easy! It’s a crime. You c’n cripple or dizzy him in the very first round if you’ve a mind to. And as often after that as you need. Then, keep remembering that four-thousand-dollar purse, with eighty per cent for the winner. And even a minus-brain like yours ought to be able to figger out the answer. We’ll start you training, to-morrow. I’ve a couple of corking new ones I’ve worked out lately. One of ’em’s a killer. And both of ’em smooth enough to get past most any ref’ree, let alone Sol Kampfmuller and that carn’val crowd. We’ll work ’em out and brush up on a few of the old ones too. So——”