And there before the eyes of half a dozen newspaper reporters, of a dozen wealthy young men who had fully intended to place large sums on Brophy, and before the eyes of his horrified manager and backer, Jimmy, at the end of ninety seconds, landed a punch that sent the flabby Mr. Brophy through the ropes and into dreamland for a much longer period than the requisite ten seconds.
Before Jimmy got dressed and out of the gymnasium he, with difficulty, escaped a half-dozen more fistic encounters, as everybody from the manager down felt that his crime deserved nothing short of capital punishment. He had absolutely wrecked a perfectly good scheme in the perfection of which several thousand dollars had been spent, and now there could not be even the possibility of a chance of their breaking even.
CHAPTER XIII.
HARRIET PHILOSOPHIZES.
When Jimmy got home that night he saw a light in the Lizard’s room and entered.
“Well,” said the cracksman, “how’s every little thing?”
Jimmy smiled ruefully.
“Canned again,” he announced, and then he told the Lizard the story of his downfall, attributing the results of the third round, however, to Brophy’s unwarranted action at the end of the second.
“Well,” said the Lizard, “you certainly are the champion boob. There you had a chance to cop off a nice bunch of coin on that fight and instead you kill it for yourself and everybody else.”