“If it isn’t too late,” said Dan hesitantly, “I kind of wish you’d cancel the match. I don’t honest think I c’n stop Kid Feltman; for all you say I’ve gone ahead this half year. And it’s more’n an even bet he c’n stop me inside the limit. So I’ve been thinking it over, and I guess you’d best call it off; or get ’em to subst’toot some easier guy than Felt——”
“Good Lord!” snorted Keegan. “Do you set there and tell me you don’t even remember from yesterday the layout for that fight? Of all the——”
“Yep,” answered Rorke, sullenly playing with his food and glancing down for encouragement at the collie lying on the floor beside him. “Yep. I remember it all right, all right, Red. I remember it. But it won’t work. That’s why I——”
“Won’t work?” thundered Keegan, glaring across at his embarrassed star. “Why the blue hell won’t it work? It’s the prettiest set-up we’ve ever handled. There ain’t a flaw to it. Won’t work, hey? Why the——”
“Because,” replied Dan sheepishly, yet firm as stone, as he glowered back at his manager, “because that set-up of yours calls for a heap of fancy fouling. And—and I’m—I’m off fouling. Off it for keeps. That’s——”
Red Keegan broke in on the halting announcement with a sound that a turkey might have produced had its tail feathers been pulled violently at the moment it chanced to be gobbling. The result was a noise that brought Jeff to his feet with a jump; his tulip ears cocked, his eyes aglow with excited inquiry; a series of staccato barks racketing from his furry throat.
“Lay down, Jeffie!” ordered Dan. “He ain’t going to bite me. He’s only——”
“Are you plumb crazy, Dan?” sputtered the manager. “Or is it a bum little joke? Off fouling, hey? What’s going to keep you from the hungry house if——”
“If clean scrapping won’t keep me fed,” answered Rorke, “I’ll go get back my job in the puddling gang. Anyhow, it goes like I said. I’m off fouling. Now go ahead and swear!”
But Red Keegan did not go ahead and swear. Profanity was a very present help to the nerves, in the event of stepping on a tack or mashing one’s thumb with a hammer or on hearing that one’s wife had eloped. But this matter lay too deep for swearing.