Swiftly, almost gutturally, Hogarty sketched it all out: Young Denny’s calm statement of his errand, his own groundless burst of spleen, and the outcome of the try-out which had sent him hurrying back to Denny’s dressing-room with many questions on his tongue’s tip and a living hope in his brain which he hardly dared to nurse.
Hogarty even recalled and related the late delivery of the card of introduction which Morehouse was now nervously twisting into misshapen shreds and, word for word, repeated the boy’s grave explanation of his reason for that tardiness.
“He bothered you, did he?” he asked. “Well, he had me guessing, too, right from the first word he spoke. There was something about him that left me wondering––thinking a little. But I’m understanding a whole lot better since you finished talking. You’re right, too, Chub––you’re all of that! Five years is a long time to wait for a chance to swing. I ought to know––I’ve waited half that long myself. That was the way he started for Boots, that second round. Oh, it was deadly––it was mighty, mighty wicked. And now, to top it all, it’s The Red for whom he was looking, too. I wish it wasn’t so easy; I sure do! It’s so simple I almost don’t enjoy it. Almost––but not quite!”
Once more he shot to his feet and began pacing up 220 and down the room. Morehouse sat following him to and fro with his eyes, trying to comprehend each step of this bewildering development which was furthest of all from what he had expected. He had listened with his face fairly glowing with appreciation to the ex-lightweight’s account of Denny’s coming. It was all so entirely in keeping with what he had already known of him. But the glint died out of his eyes after a time; even his nervously active fingers stopped worrying the bit of cardboard on the table.
“Granted that he could turn the trick, Flash,” he suggested at last, “even admitting that he might be able to stop Conway after a few months of training to help him out, do you suppose he’d be willing to hang around and fight his way up through the ranks, until he forced ’em to let him have his match? It’s usually a two year’s job, you know, at the very least.
“I don’t know why, Flash, but somehow the more I think of it, the surer I grow that there is something more behind his wanting that fight than we know anything about. It isn’t just a grudge; it isn’t just because of the dirty deal which that village has been giving him, either. I’ve been wondering––I’m wondering right now why he asked me if that account of the purse was true or not. Because men don’t fight the way you say he fought, Flash, just 221 for money. They fight hard, I’ll admit, but not that way!”
There was a living menace in Hogarty’s steady tread up and down the room. He wheeled and crossed, turned and retraced his steps noiselessly, cat-footed in his low rubbed-shod shoes. And he turned a gaze that was almost pitying upon the plump man’s objection.
“Two years––to get ready?” he asked softly. “Chub, do you think I’d wait two years––now? Why, two months is too long, and that is the outside limit which I’m allowing myself in this affair. You’re a little slow, Chub––just a bit slow in grasping the possibilities, aren’t you? Think a minute! Put your mind upon it, man! I’ve told you I am going to pay Dennison off––and pay him with the same coin that he handed me. Doesn’t that mean anything at all?”
He stopped short, crossed to the table and stood with his fingertips bracketed upon its surface. Morehouse knew Hogarty––knew him as did few other men, unless, perhaps, it was those who, years before, had faced him in the ring. And at that moment Hogarty’s eyes were mere slits in his face as he stood and peered down into the newspaper man’s upturned features, his mouth like nothing so much as a livid scar above his chin. There was nothing of mirth in those eyes, nothing of merriment in that tight mouth, and yet as he sat and gazed back up at them, Morehouse’s 222 own lips began to twitch. They began to relax. That wide grin spread to the very corners of his eyelids and half hid his delighted comprehension behind a thousand tiny wrinkles.
“I wonder,” he breathed, “I wonder now, Flash, if you are thinking about the same thing I am? For if you are––well, you’re too sober faced. You are that! It’s time to indulge in a little hysterics.”