And he began to chuckle; he sat and shook with muffled spasms of absolute joy as the thing became more and more vivid with each new thought. Even Hogarty’s answering smile, coming from reluctant lips, had in it something of sympathetic mirth.
“That’s just what I am thinking,” he said. “Just that! It’s what I meant when I said I was going to pay him––with his own coin. When a man plays another man crooked, he expects that other man to come back at him some day; he is looking for him to do that. But there is one thing he doesn’t expect––not usually. He isn’t looking for him to work the same old game. It is something new he’s looking to guard against.
“And that is where Dennison is weak––in that spot and one other. He doesn’t know even yet that when I fell for his game I fell hard enough to wake me up. He thinks I haven’t a suspicion but what it was just an accident that laid Sutton out, two years back––just a lucky punch of The Red’s that went across and 223 spoiled our perfect frame-up. And he hasn’t a suspicion that I know he was sure The Red was going to clean up Sutton, just as surely as they went to the ring together.
“That is where he is weak. When a man is a crook he wants to be a real crook––and a real one is suspicious of everybody, even of himself.”
He lifted one hand and pounded gently upon the polished surface of the table.
“The old days are done––dead––when a man got his reputation, and a chance at the big ones simply by fighting his way up from the bottom. I can give a man a bigger reputation in a week, with five thousand dollars’ worth of real advertising, than he’d be able to get in a lifetime the old way. And training?–––”
He jerked his head over one shoulder toward the dressing-rooms beyond the closed door.
“Right now he is just where I want him. Why, he looks like a pitiful dub if you hold him back. Order him to wait––and it’s heart-breaking to watch him suffer. In one month I can teach him all he’ll ever need to know about blocking and getting away. And the rest? Well, you’ll get a chance to see just what happens when he really goes into action. I tell you it makes you stop and think.
“And I don’t care what he is fighting for; I don’t care what he wants. Pleasure or profit, it’s all one to 224 me. It’s you I need most right now, Chub. I know you have always been a little particular about soiling your hands. A shady deal never appealed to me so much, either, but I’m not exactly bashful about this one. That part of it will be my own private affair. You handle the publicity end––merely hail Bolton as a comer, when the time is ripe. Are you––are you in on it?”
Morehouse thoughtfully scratched his head.