“Now here is some punching that does a man’s heart good—it seems like old times, when——.” You know the rest about the days of long ago, and if you listen to him he will hand you a line of talk that will put you away for the count.
You may talk as you like about all the sports you know, but after all there is nothing like a good go with the gloves between a pair who know their business, and there are few men who have any red blood in their veins who will not go a long ways to see a slugfest. Of course you’ll always find up against some bar a bunch of dead ones who will stretch their arms and say:
“Not for mine; I’ve seen all I want to see, and I wouldn’t go around the corner to get a ringside seat at a go between Roosevelt and Kaiser Wilhelm.”
There’s a screw loose somewhere in these fellows, or else they are drying of dry rot and don’t know it. Nine out of ten of them are bigger around the waist than they are around the chest, and they invariably talk loud.
There’s a little club that I know of where you can get a great run for your money, and we will go there.
It’s a case of come early and avoid the rush, for when the gong rings for the first bout there is only standing room left and that is at a premium because the prices are low. The manager doesn’t have to bother his head about making matches because the “talent” comes to him, and it often happens that the men who furnish the preliminaries are picked from out of the audience. These three-round affairs have done a lot to bring out a bunch of new ones; any young fellow who knows any part of the game can go on and get a try-out. He earns a few dollars and if he proves to be good, he is boosted along the line.
There is a mixed crowd on hand to-night, and you can expect a good card. In one of the ringside seats is the district attorney, a man who loves a fair fight in or out of the ring. Further up are a few brokers who have thought it worth while to come down here for one night, anyhow. It is safe to say that every class in life is represented, the man who is worth a million rubs elbows with the ten-dollar-a-week clerk and they fraternize as freely as though they were chums.
“This Abe Attell is a clever boy, but they say he hasn’t the punch,” ventures the clerk.
“Yes, I saw him recently and he made that big fellow look like a cart horse,” returns the man of money.
The fellow who paid one-tenth of his weekly stipend to join the club for that one night, which, by the way, is the system employed to evade the law on the subject, pulls out a cigarette, and asks: