“I came down here to fight,” he announced, at the end of the first week.
“Where’s Jim Hanford?”
Stubener whistled.
“A big champion like him wouldn’t look at you,” was his answer. “ ‘Go and get a reputation,’ is what he’d say.”
“But the public doesn’t know that. If you licked him you’d be champion of the world, and no champion ever became so with his first fight.”
“I can.”
“But the public doesn’t know it, Pat. It wouldn’t come to see you fight. And it’s the crowd that brings the money and the big purses. That’s why Jim Hanford wouldn’t consider you for a second. There’d be nothing in it for him. Besides, he’s getting three thousand a week right now in vaudeville, with a contract for twenty-five weeks. Do you think he’d chuck that for a go with a man no one ever heard of? You’ve got to do something first, make a record. You’ve got to begin on the little local dubs that nobody ever heard of—guys like Chub Collins, Rough-House Kelly, and the Flying Dutchman. When you’ve put them away, you’re only started on the first round of the ladder. But after that you’ll go up like a balloon.”
“I’ll meet those three named in the same ring one after the other,” was Pat’s decision. “Make the arrangements accordingly.”
Stubener laughed.