Me for the b.o.o.bs!

Kid Scanlan was a b.o.o.b. He was a great battler, a regular fellow and all like that, but he was a b.o.o.b just the same. He started fightin'

because he was simp enough to take a chance of havin' his features altered, and he won the t.i.tle through bein' stupid enough to mix it with the welterweight champion. I was the wise guy of the party, always playin' it safe and seein' what made it go, before I'd take a chance. But the Kid got a whole lot further than I ever will. He made a name for himself in the ring and another in the movies and I ain't champion of _nothin'_--I'm just _with_ Scanlan, that's all.

I'm gettin' offers from promoters here and there to have him start against some set up for money that was sinful to refuse, but there's nothin' doin'. The Kid has took to bein' an actor like they did to gunpowder in Europe, and not only he won't fight, I can't even get him mad!

"I'm off that roughneck stuff!" he tells me. "n.o.body ever got nothin'

by fightin'. Look what it did to Willard! Besides," he goes on, "what would John Drew and them guys think of me, if it should leak out that I had give in to box fightin' again? Why they'd be off me for life!

Nope, let 'em battle in Russia, I'm through!"

Fine for a champion, eh?

Now here's a guy that went to the top in the one game where you can't luck your way over. Because he was a fightin' fool, the 'Kid had right-crossed his way to the t.i.tle and now that he was up there, the big stiff wouldn't look at a glove! No! he was a actor now! I'd tell him that Kid Whosthis had flattened Battlin' McGluke the night before and we could get ten thousand to go six rounds with the winner. He'd flick the ash off a gold-tipped cigarette and say,

"Yeh?" Then he'd grab me by the shoulder and pour this in my ear.

"Did you get me in that Shakespeare picture last week? I hear the guy that writes up shows for the Peoria _Gazette_ claims Mansfield had nothin' on me!"

A few months before he would have said somethin' like this,

"All right! Wire the club we'll fight him, and if I don't bounce that tramp in two rounds, I'll give my end to them starvin' Armenians!"

Now I didn't kick when the Kid falls for Miss Vincent, because I had seen Miss Vincent, and the Kid was only human. I didn't say nothin'

when he staked himself to that second-hand auto that like to wrecked California, but when he pulls this actor thing on me and says pugilism, _pugilism_, mind you, ought to be discouraged--I figured it was about time for yours in the faith to step in.

The Kid had two ambitions in life, both of which he picked up at Film City. One was to be the greatest movie hero that ever flattened a villain, and the other was to ease himself into the Golden West Club.

The Golden West Club was over in Frisco, and as far as the average guy was concerned it could have been in Iceland. It was about as easy to get into that joint as it is to get into Heaven, and it was also the only other place where you couldn't buy your way in. Your name had to be Fortescue-Smith or Van Whosthis, and you had to look it. You had to be partial to tea, wrist watches, dancin', opera, tennis and the like, and to top it all off you had to be a distant relative to a hick called William the Conqueror, who I hear was light heavy-weight champ in days of old. If you checked up all right on them little details, they took a vote on you. If you was lucky, you got a letter in a few weeks later sayin' your application was bein' considered and you might get in, but not to bank on it, because they was havin' trouble connectin' up your grandfather with the rest of the family tree, it bein' said around that he made his money through work.

That was the place Kid Scanlan wanted to bust into!

One night he gets all dressed up like a horse in one of them soup and fish layouts, and he hires a guy to drive him over to the Golden West Club in that second-hand A. G. F. he had. I will say the Kid went into the thing in a big way, payin' seventy-five bucks for a dress suit and ten more for the whitest shirt I ever seen in my life. He sends in eight berries for a hack-driver's hat and seven for a pair of tan shoes. Then he climbs into his bus and tells the driver, "Let's go!"

Before he pulled out, he told me they was so many guys belonged to the thing that he figured he could mix around for a few minutes without anybody gettin' wise that he wasn't a regular member, if he could only breeze past the jobbie on the door.

And outside of the shoes, which I thought was a trifle noisy, the Kid sized up like any of the real club members I had seen, except his chest wasn't so narrow and he had an intelligent look.

Well, he blowed in about twelve o'clock and come up to the rooms we had at the hotel in Film City. He stands in the middle of the bedroom, takes off this trick silk hat, and, puttin' everything he had on the throw, he pitched it into the bathtub. He slammed that open-faced coat in a corner and in a minute it was followed by them full-dress pants.

The gleamin' white shirt skidded under the bed, neck and neck with the shoes. I didn't say a word while he was abusin' them clothes, but I was so happy I felt like cheerin', because they was somethin' in the Kid's face I hadn't seen there since we hit the movies. The last time I had caught him lookin' like that was when One-Punch Ross had dropped him with a left hook, just before the Kid won the t.i.tle. When the Kid got to his feet that there look was on his face and two seconds later he was welterweight champion of the world and points adjacent.

He inserts himself into his pyjamas and then he swings around on me.

"How much did they offer us at the Garden for ten rounds with Battlin'

Edwards?" he wants to know.

I liked to fell out of the bed!

"Eight thousand, with a privilege of thirty per cent of the gross," I says, gettin' off of the hay. "Will I wire 'em?"

"Yep!" he snaps out. "Tell 'em I'll fight Edwards two weeks after I get through here!"

"And when will that be, might I ask?" I says, ringin' for a messenger and tryin' to keep from dancin' a jig.

"As soon as them simps finish that picture, 'How Kid Scanlan Won the t.i.tle,'" he tells me. "Genaro says he'll start it to-morrow, and as soon as it's through, so am I--here!"

I didn't get the answer to all this until the Kid crawls into the hay half a hour later, scowlin' and mutterin' to himself. I took a good look at him and then I says,

"Speakin' of clubs and stuff like that, how did you make out at that Golden West joint to-night?"

He sits right up in the bed.

"Are you tryin' to kid somebody?" he snarls.

"I asked you a civil question, you big stiff!" I comes back, "and don't be comin' around here and slippin' _me_ that rough stuff! If you can be a gentleman at your clubs and joints like that, you want to be one here! D'ye get that?"

He looks at me for a minute and seein' I'm serious, he growls,

"I thought you had heard about it!" Then he props himself up with the pillows and begins, "I went over there to-night and them b.o.o.bs was havin' a racket of some kind, I guess, because all the automobiles in the West was lined up outside the doors of the club. I tried to horn in the line with that boat of mine and the biggest n.i.g.g.e.r in the world, dressed up like a band leader, comes over and wants to know if I'm a guest. I told him no, that I was a movie actor and to step one side or he'd break the headlights when I hit him. He claims I can't get in the line without I got a ticket showin' I'm a guest. I got tired of his chatter, so I dropped him with a short left swing and we keep on goin'

till we wind up at the front door. This stupid simp I had drivin' my bus is lookin' at the swell dames goin' in, instead of at the emergency brake, and he forgets to stop the thing till we have took off the rear end of a car in front of us and busted my front mudguard again.

"While the chiffure of the wreck is moanin' to my guy about it, I ducked out the side and blowed around to the entrance. I figured they was a pa.s.sword of some kind, so I says to the big hick at the gate, 'Ephus Doffus Loffus,' and pushes past him, I guess he was surprised at me bein' a stranger and knowin' the ropes at that, because I seen him lookin' after me when I beat it up the first stairway to the second floor. I got a flash at myself in a mirror as I breeze past, and, if I do say it myself, I was there forty ways. I was simply a knockout in that evenin' dress thing! A swell-lookin' guy pipes me at the top of the stairs and, after givin' me the once over, he taps me on the arm.

"'You may bring me a glawss of Appollinaris, my man,' he says, 'and for heaven sake remove those yellow shoes!'

"With that he walks away and another guy comes up and whistles at me.

When I turn around, he's givin' me the up and down through a gla.s.s thing he's got hung over one eye.

"'Bring up a box of perfectos at once!' he pipes. 'Come! Look alive now!'

"Then I got it! _I_ thought I was knockin' 'em dead and these guys thought I was a waiter! Well, I thinks, I'll show them b.o.o.bs somethin'

before I take the air--I can pull that stuff _myself_! With that I breezes into the next room and there's a hick sittin' at a table, toyin' with a book. He was as near nothin' as anything I ever seen, on the level! He's got a swell dress suit on, but it didn't fit him no better than mine did me and it couldn't have cost no more or he would have killed the tailor. Outside of the shoes, mine bein' cla.s.sier, we was both made up the same. A guy comes in, looks him over for a minute and then he yawns. 'Bored?' he says. The simp that was sittin' down looks back at him, yawns and says, 'Frightfully.' Then the other guy bows at him and goes out. Some other hick wanders in and says, 'Ah, Van Stuyvessant, bored?' and Stupid says, 'Frightfully' and the other guy blows out. I seen that the coast was clear, so I smoothed my hair, pulled down my vest and throwed my chest out like them other guys did.

Then I breezed in and stopped before this guy. He yawns and looks up at me very dignified like he was sittin' in the Night Court and I was up before him for the third time in a week.

"'Hey, Stupid!' I says. 'Get me a gin fizz and don't make it too sweet! And for heaven's sakes get rid of that shirt!'

"I thought he was goin' to get the apoplexy or somethin', because his face is as red as a four-alarm fire. Then he says,

"'Why--what--how dare you, you insolent puppy!'

"I leaned on his shoulder and tapped him on the end of the beak with my thumb.

"'Lay off that stuff, Simple,' I tells him. 'I'm a guest here and a couple of hicks took me for a waiter. I'm just gettin' even, that's all. If you don't get me that gin fizz like I asked you, I'll knock you for a goal!'

"He gets as white as my shirt and presses a little b.u.t.ton on the table.

A big husky, made up like a Winter Garden chorus man, runs in and Stupid says, 'Eject this ruffian, Simms! And then you will answer to me for allowing him to enter!'

"Simms was game, but a poor worker, so I feinted him over in front of his master and then I flattened him with a left and right to the jaw.

I took it on the run then and got out the back way!"

The Kid stops and heaves a sigh.