I never really knowed a thing about bread, except that you put b.u.t.ter on it, until I give that place the up and down.

What I don't know about the staff of life now would never get you through Yale. I might go farther than that and come right out with the fact that I have become a abandoned bread fiend and got to have it or I foam at the mouth, since I seen how it was made at this dough foundry.

A accommodatin' little guy took hold of me and the Kid and showed us all over the different machine shops where this here bread was mixed, baked and what-notted for the trade. Our charmin' guide must have come from a family of auctioneers and circus barkers and he never heard of no sums under ten or eleven thousand in his life. He knowed more about figures than Joe Grady, who once filled in a summer with a Russian ballet, and he had been wound up and set to deliver chatter at the rate of three words a second, provided the track was fast and he got off in front. He talked with his whole body, waggin' his head, movin' his arms and shufflin' his feet. When he got warmed up and goin' good, he pushed forward at you with his hands like he was tryin' to insert his chatter right into you.

He leads us to a spot about half a mile from where we come in, holds up his hands to Heaven, coughs, blows his nose and gives a little shiver.

"Over there!" he bellers, without no warnin'. "Over there is our marvelous, mastadon, mixin' shop. We use 284,651 pounds of scrupulously sifted and freshly flavored flour, one million cakes of elegant yeast and 156,390 pounds of bakin' powder each and every year!

We employ 865 magnificent men there and they get munificent money. We don't permit the use of drugs, alcoholics, tobacco or unions! The men works eight easy hours a delightful day, six days a week and they are happy, hardy and healthy! Promotion is regular, rapid and regardless!

Our employees is all loyal, likable and Lithuanians! They own their own cottages, clothes and chickens, bein' thrifty, temperate and--"

"Tasty!" I yells. I couldn't, keep it in no longer!

"What?" snaps the little guy, kinda sore.

"Lay off, Stupid!" says the Kid to me, with a openly admirin' glance at the runt. "Go on with your story," he nods to him. "Never mind Senseless, here, I'm gettin' every word of it!"

The little hick glares at me and points to a shack on the left.

"Over there," he pipes. "Over there is our shippin' plant where the freshly finished and amazingly appetizin' loaves are carefully counted and accurately a.s.sembled! For this painstakin' performance we employ 523 more men. None but the skilled, superior and--and--eh--Scandinavian are allowed in that diligent department, and each and every day a grand, glorious total of ten thousand lovely loaves is let loose with nothin' missin' but the consumer's contented cackle as he eagerly eats! We even garnish each loaf with a generous gob of Gazoopis--our own ingenuous invention--before they finally flitter forth! Would you like to see the shop?"

"I certainly wish _I_ could sling chatter like that!" answers the Kid with a sigh. "But I guess it's all in the way a guy was brung up.

Gobs of generous Gazoopis!" he mutters, turnin' the words over in his mouth like they was sweet morsels. "Gobs of generous Gazoopis! Oh, boy!"

The little guy throws out his chest and bows with a "I-thank-you" look all over his face. He got me sore just watchin' him. Y'know that runt hated himself!

"Say!" I says to him. "If all that stuff you claim for this roll foundry is on the level, it must take a lot of dough to run it, eh?"

"Are you tryin' to kid me?" he sneers.

"No!" I comes back. "But speakin' of bakeries, I'd sacrifice my sacred silk socks for a flash at them skilled Scandinavians a.s.semblin' that bread, before I move on to nasty New York!"

The Kid slaps me on the back and grins.

"Go on, Foolish!" he says. "You got this bird on the ropes!" He turns to the runt. "All I want," he goes on, "is one peep at them likable Lithuanians--can I git that?"

"You guys is as funny as pneumonia to me!" snorts the little guy, gettin' red in the face. "That stuff may pa.s.s for comedy in Yonkers or wherever you hicks blowed in from, but it don't git no laugh outa me!

D'ye wanna see this shop or don't you--yes or no?"

"Let's go!" I tells him. "You got me all worked up about it!"

"Same here!" says the Kid. "I only wish I could talk like you can, but I guess it's a gift, ain't it?"

The little guy grunts somethin' and nods for us to fall in behind him, and we lock step along till we come to another joint from which was issuin' what I'll lay eight to five was all the noise in the world.

How they ever gathered it up and got it in the buildin' I don't know, but I do know it was there! If you'd take a bowlin' alley on Turnverein night, a boiler factory workin' on a rush order and the battle of Gettysburg, wind 'em up and set 'em all off at once, you might get a faint idea of how the inmates of that buildin' was ruinin'

the peace and quiet of the surroundin' country. A dynamite explosion in the next block would have attracted as much attention as a whisper in a steamfittin' shop.

"I thought the war was all over!" hollers the Kid, holdin' his ears.

"Has the police been tipped off about this?"

"What d'ye mean the police?" screams back the runt. "That there is the mixin' and bakin' shop."

"Yeh?" I cuts in. "Well, I don't know what them skilled Scandinavians of yours is at, but, believe me, they're _tryin'_ all right!"

The runt sneers at us.

"You must be a fine pair of hicks!" he says. "D'ye mean to say you never heard of the Eureka Mixin' and Bakin' machine?"

"I can hear it now, all right!" I tells him, noddin' to the buildin'

where the boilermakers was havin' a field day, "but--"

"Sufferin' salmon, what b.o.o.bs!" he interrupts me. Then he gives us both the once over and starts his sneerer workin' again. "Say!" he asks me. "Who d'ye like to win the battle of Santiago and d'ye think Lincoln will git elected again?"

"I don't know," I comes back. "I'm gonna vote for Jefferson myself!"

I looks him right in the eye. "I think Washington is a sucker to hang around Valley Forge all winter, don't you?" I asks him.

"Couple of small time cut-ups, eh?" he says, shakin' his head. "Where d'ye come from?"

"New York," the Kid tells him, "and listen--will you do me a favor and let's hear some more about them likable Lithuanians and gobs of generous Gazoopis?"

"I figured you come from some hick burg like New York," says the runt, ignorin' the Kid's request. "I can spot a guy from New York ten miles away! He knocks Brooklyn, thinks walkin' up Broadway is seein' life, was born in Memphis and is the only thing that keeps the mail order houses in Oshkosh from goin' to the wall! New Yorkers, eh?" he winds up with another insultin' sneer. "I got you!"

"Gobs of generous Gazoopis!" mutters the Kid like he's in a trance.

"Sweet Papa!"

The runt looks at him.

"How does _that_ bird fool the almshouse?" he asks me.

I bent down so's I could whisper in the side of his little dome. Them skilled Scandinavians in the buildin' had gone crazy or else some of the night shift had come in with more boilers and things to hit 'em with.

"That's Kid Scanlan, welterweight champion of the world!" I hisses in his ear.

"Ha, ha!" laughs the runt. "That's who he'd _like_ to be, you mean!"

"Our employees is all hale, hearty and hilarious!" grins the Kid at him. "We pay 'em off in money, music and mush! Wow!"

"If that big stiff is tryin' to kid me," begins the runt, gettin' red again, "he--"

"All right, all right!" I b.u.t.ts in quickly. "Don't let's have no violence. Show us what makes that shop go, and we'll grab the next rattler for New York. Y'know the Kid fights Battlin' Edwards on the twenty-first and--"

"Are you on the _level_ with that stuff?" interrupts the runt, still lookin' at the Kid. "Is that really Kid Scanlan?"

I calls the Kid over.

"Kid," I says, "meet Mister--er--"

"Sapp," says the runt. "Joe Sapp!" He sticks out his hand. "I remember you now," he tells the Kid. "I seen you fight some tramp in Fort Wayne last year. I think you hit this guy with everything but the referee and that's why I like your work. When _I_ send in three bucks for a place to sit down at a box fight, I expect to see a.s.sault and batter and not the Virginia Reel! Why--"