“You know what I’ve always told you—you got the makin’s of a champion ’f you’ll only get down to business,” said his father. “You’re trailin’ around too much with that bootleggin’ gang uh yours. No fighter ever got to the top with a bottle in his hand, I’m tellin’ you.”
“G’wan, you know damn well I’m down to the gym five days a week,” answered Harry, who realized the truth of his father’s words, but wanted to minimize it with his own reply. “An’ what’s more, I don’t see any of you turnin’ down that fifty they slip me ev’ry Monday. Money don’t lay around on the street—you got to get it any place you can.”
“Well, I ain’t any too anxious ’bout hearin’ the cops knockin’ on this door some day,” his father responded, peevishly.
“Go ahead, drink your fool self to death—who cares,” said Mabel, who had become petulant at the thought of the grand style in which they could all live if her brother would only rise to the head of his class. “You’ve got plenty of muscle but no sense, that’s the trouble with you.”
“Say, how many times ’ve you seen me drunk, how many?” Harry asked, beginning to be angry at this exposure of his weakest trait. “Ev’ry one in this joint’s always lappin’ up all I bring home, an’ I never touch it myself. ’F I do go on a jag once’n a while it’s my business. You can’t get up in the fight game unless you’re on the inside—there’s too many big crooks higher up fixin’ things.”
“I don’t believe it—you’re just looking for a way out,” said Blanche, to whom Harry was a generous but conceited brother—a strong, vicious baby who imagined himself to be a model of shrewdness. At the bottom she disliked his bulldozing, prying ways, but her dislike was not yet strong enough to overcome the more enforced feelings of gratitude and blood-ties within her heart. Harry always suspected that Blanche was the one member of his family not impressed by his prowess and his knowledge of the world, and he never gave up his efforts to increase her respect, with all the argument and repartee at his command.
“I am, huh,” he said, answering her last remark. “What do you know about it? I suppose you get all that info’ uh yours punchin’ the cash register down at the cafeteria. The only way you’re wise is with your mouth. That middle-weight champ fight down at the Terrace was fixed up a week ago and I’ve got it straight. Just watch the papers tuhmorrow night.”
“Aw, I’ve heard a lotta roomors goin’ around, but that’s hot air,” said his father. “Garvey’d be a damn fool to sell his title for any amount—I don’t care ’fit’s one hundred thousan’. He ain’t had it a year yet, an’ there’s plenty uh holes left in the meal-ticket.”
“Listen to somethin’, will yuh,” answered Harry, who really knew what he was talking about in this matter. “Garvey’s gonna give up the title now and then win it back in a return bout. Lose it on a foul an’ raise a big holler—that’s the scheme. Young Anderson’ll keep it f’r a year ’r so, an’ make a pile of dough cleanin’ up all the suckers in the sticks. With the movie stuff an’ the easy pickin’s he’ll rake in three times ’s much as his manager give Garvey’s tuh fix it all up. I got it from a guy who was there when they all talked it over, only I can’t say his name ’cause I’d get my bean drilled through ’f they ever found out I told.”
“Are you kiddin’ me?” demanded his father.