That lightning-like change swept his face again, twisting his lips nastily, stamping all his features with something totally bad. The man who had never been whipped by any man, from the day he won his first brawl in the gutter, showed through the veneer that was no thicker than the funereal black and white garb he wore, no deeper than his superficially polished utterance which he had acquired from long contact with those who had been born to it.
“I’m going to pay my debts,” he slurred the words dangerously, “pay them with the same coin that Dennison slipped to me two years ago!”
Little by little Morehouse’s head came forward at the mention of that name. It was of Dennison that the plump newspaper man had been subconsciously thinking ever since he had entered Hogarty’s immaculate little office; it was of Dennison that he always thought whenever he saw that bad light kindling in the ex-lightweight’s eyes. Dennison was the promoter who had backed Jed The Red from the day when the latter had fought his first fight.
And, “You don’t mean,” he faltered, “Flash, you don’t mean that you think that boy can stop–––”
Hogarty’s thin voice bit in and cut him short.
“Think?” he demanded. “Think? I don’t have to think any more! I know!”
For a second he seemed to be pondering something; then he threw up his head again. And his startlingly 218 sudden burst of laughter made Morehouse wince a little.
“Don’t make a fool of him, Chub?” he croaked. “Be merciful with the boy! Man, you’re half an hour late! I did my best. Oh, I’m bad––I know just how bad I can be, when I try. But he called me! Yes, that’s what he did––he as much as told me that I wasn’t giving him a chance to get his cards on the table. So I ran him up against Sutton. And I did more than that. I told Boots to get him––told him to beat him to death––and I meant it, too! And do you know what happened? Could you guess? Well, I’ll tell you and save you time.
“He went in and took enough punishment from Boots in that first round to make any man stop and think. He put up the worst exhibition I ever saw, just because he was trying to fight the way Ogden had coached him, instead of his own style. That was the first round; but it didn’t take him very long to see where he had been wrong. There wasn’t any second round––that is, not so that you could really notice it.
“He was waiting for the bell, and the gong just seemed to pick him up and drop him in the middle of the ring. And Sutton went to him––and he caught Boots coming in! Why, he just snapped his right over and straightened him up, and then stepped in and whipped across his left, and Boots went back into 219 the ropes. He went back––and he stayed back!”