Well, she said, this bird had been down to South America where he had discovered some kind of a mineral that had made him very rich and some kind of a fever that had made him very sick. He was at the sanitarium so's the doctors could keep a eye on him, the bettin' bein' about seven to five that he would go nutty, if some excavatin' wasn't done immediately on his dome. A operation will save him, but his parents won't think of it, and there you are. When she stopped, I told her that whilst I never had performed no operations before, beyond once when I pulled a loose tooth of Scanlan's between the second and third round of a fight, I would get somebody to sneak me in some tools and get to work on the big guy the first chance I got. She give a little squeal and says that wasn't what she wanted me to do, gettin' pale and prettier every minute. I seen I pulled a bone, so I asks her to come right out with it and whatever she said I'd do it or break a leg.
"Then when Mr. Scanlan takes his exercise every day with the boxing gloves and punching bag," she says, "get him to persuade Arthur to join him. Arthur would do it for him quicker than he would for me or any of the doctors. He thinks we are all in league against him and he admires Mr. Scanlan—I've read it in his face as he watches him out in the yard. Arthur himself was a noted athlete before he went to South America. He might even box with Mr. Scanlan. That would lessen the tension on his mind and we might get him to see that an operation is—Oh! Will you do it?" she breaks off suddenly, grabbin' my hand.
"Will I?" I says, holdin' on to that hand. "If Scanlan don't box him, I'll take him on myself!"
"Oh, thank you—thank you!" she whispers, "I—"
"That's all right!" I cuts her off. "Is—ah—is the big fellow any relation to you?"
She blushed. Yeh—and I looked at her, forgettin' a lot of things about both of us that didn't quite match—and wished! I got everything I had together for one good try, bein' handicapped by the fact that I still had her hand and that room was goin' around like a top. And then, poor boob—I looked down at the hand I didn't have, wonderin' why she didn't answer me—and saw the answer on one finger. The darned cold, glitterin' thing seemed to sneer at me. I felt like I'd stopped one with my chin, and somethin' went outa me that ain't back yet. What? Well, a guy can hope, can't he?
Say! That ring must have cost five hundred bucks—it was a pip!
I grabbed a drink of that darned milk to steady myself, and I seen from the way she looked at me that she got me.
"I see!" I says, lettin' go of the hand that belonged to friend Arthur. "He—and he went to South America, eh?"
"Listen!" she whispers, bendin' over. "You know now what this means to me. If you'll help me, I'll do anything for you! Why—"