The padded fists meet for an instant, the Kid steps back one pace and then lunges forward. He comes in with a jab, and he catches Haley squarely on the mouth with his left. Aha, he has landed. He pulls his right back to follow it up, but in that fraction of a second his chance has gone, for he’s up against a ring general. Two more futile rushes and then he tried again. This time he misses with the left, but starting his right without pulling back, he catches his man on the jaw just in front of the ear. He feels the blow land and then he starts in with rights and lefts, but shifty Patsy steps inside of them and they go around his neck. In a frenzy the Kid pushes him away, but for his trouble he gets another jab on that sore nose that brings the moisture to his eyes.
“Make him fight, Kid,” bawls the trainer; “go after him.”
He might as well go after a dancing sunbeam as to go after the elusive, shifty, smiling Patsy, who is stalling and jabbing the third round away, and when the final gong rings he is still going after him with nothing doing. There is bitterness in his heart, but it doesn’t last, for when they shake hands, the little fellow who made many a good one in his day look like a draught horse, remarks:
“You’re all right, Kid, and you’ll beat a lot of them some day.”
The glitter of a circus became too much for them to resist
A CASE OF KNOCKOUT DROPS
In a back room of a place just off Broadway sat a good-looking brunette—you will notice all these girls of mine are good looking—and three young fellows of the kind known to the police as “cadets.” There was nothing unusual about this room except that it was better furnished than you would have expected, and it had expensive oil paintings on the walls. Besides, it was carpeted. All this would mean higher-priced drinks if not a better service.
It was a drinking place where women might come with their escorts and feel reasonably safe from intrusion, and midnight was its busiest hour. Just now was the calm which precedes the storm, and there were not enough guests to induce the waiters to cease their gossiping and loafing in the big room outside.