10 Short Novels Magazine — page 133: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

recognizing a brother of the cauliflower fraternity, waltzed up on rocking-chair heels. Fletch shelled out a dollar, which meant cutting down on his own rations. “You’re a pal, buddy,” wheezed the glove-broken veteran. “Hope you win your next start. I’d ’a’ been a champ, only I was robbed. I would ’a’ licked Kid McCoy, too, only I wasn’t right that night.” é The derelict shuffled away. Fletch smiled wryly. “Old boy, I'll soon be in your class,” he thought bit- terly. “I guess it isn’t such a dreadful fate, being slap-happy and going around in a dream.” Fletch returned to the ring. Under the name of Jimmy Brand, he let promoters of out-of-town arenas toss him in with ee eer Len mphne7 anybody. They treated him like a washed- up pug. But he’d ceased to care. The spark was gone. He was just a dull laborer. Obsessed by the urge to pay back Pop Skeggs, he answered the gong too often. He moved to another rooming house, so Skeggs couldn’t find him, and sent the old manager most of the tough bucks he earned. He wrote that he had a good job, and that some day he hoped to spend a vacation on the chicken farm Skeggs would buy. The pace was too swift, the mills too savage. In three months Fletch was little more than a brittle rind, ready for the scrap heap. The promoters ignored him. His money vanished. The rooming-house Comichboo Ks : Pea