There was nothing dwarfish about me, and my temperament made me enjoy the many "scraps" which belong to a street arab's routine.
Park Row was and is frequented by the lesser lights of the sporting world. Our boyish fights were not fought in seclusion, but anywhere. Being a constant participant in these "goes," as I was almost daily called upon to defend my sounding title of "Newsboy Champion of Park Row" against new aspirants for the honor, myself and my fighting "work" soon became familiar to the "sports," who were the most interested of the spectators.
I was of large frame, my face was of the bulldog type, my muscles were strong, my constitution hardened by my outdoor existence in all sorts of weather, and, without knowing it, my advance in the art of fisticuffs was eagerly watched, with the hope of discovering in me a new "dark horse" for the prize ring.
Among the men who had followed my progress in boxing were such renowned sports as Steve Brodie, Warren Lewis, "Fatty" Flynn, "Pop" Kaiser and others of equal prominence. In due time overtures were made to me. I was properly "tried out" on several third-rate boxers, and said good-by to the newsboy life to blossom out as a full-fledged pugilist.
Before long I began to have higher ambitions. It was the day of smaller purses and more fighting, and I determined to fight often so as to accumulate money quickly. I had no definite idea why I wanted to accumulate money with such feverish haste. I had some dim desire to wanting to have a lot of it, to having the sensation of being the possessor of a roll of bills, and, this being the only road open to me toward that goal, I was eager to travel it.
That was my ambition at the age of seventeen, the age when boys prepare themselves to be men in the fullest and only sense of the word. My boyhood, dreary as my childhood, closed behind me without a pang of regret on my part. I was aspiring according to my lights and my aspirations spelled nothing more or less than degradation.
LIVING BY MY MUSCLE.
CHAPTER IV.
LIVING BY MY MUSCLE.
The manly art of self-defense, as practised then, was unhampered by much law or refinement. Still, with all this license, I was too brutish to make a successful prizefighter. My sponsor in this sporting life soon learned that I had a violent temper.