Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 162: what you’re looking at

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

152 with the gloves, had a following among the Mexican population of El Paso that would have put a champion to shame. In half a dozen recent bouts he had knocked out his man, and every Mexican in the city that could beg, borrow or steal the price of admission went to the show to see him repeat on OV’ Murph. They figured Two Round could whip any one from Dempsey to Buffalo Bill, and the noise they put up when he climbed into the ring sounded like a million tugboats trying to signal the Statue of Liberty out of the way during a daybreak fog. Put- ting reverse English on their cheering, they let OV Murph know exactly what they thought of him and where he was going to land about a second after he shook hands. Murph was too old at the leather push- ing game to let this bother him; he just enlarged his map of Ireland with a grin and leaned down toward the press box and asked us if we thought there was any chance of them starting a revolution. ‘Not unless you happen to knock him for a goal,” Billy Treat told him, and OI Murph looked serious for a moment. “Vou better get a line on the exits, then,” he said, “’cause I draws down seventy-five plunks if I win, and only fitty if I lose.’ We could see he was thinking seriously about it. ‘“ Weight—weight? What’s the rate of poundage?” A lot of fans bellowed as the announcer started to leave the ring. “ Welters—one forty-five each,” he claimed, and the Mexicans seemed satis- fied, but the gringoes weren’t, and they let the world know it. Any one could see that the Mexican was almost above the middle- weight class. It looked for a minute as though it was going to be a riot, but the bell turned the storm into a nervous silence as Ol Murph and Two Round Gutierrez touched gloves. About a thousandth of a second after the gloves touched, Ol’ Murph whipped over a wicked left to the nose. A couple specks of red flew clear across the ring and landed on my shirt front. The rest of it flowed down and formed an inartistic pattern on the pair of loose yellow satin trunks Gutier- rez was wearing. ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. I’ve never seen the bird yet that could fight with a pair of those “ best girl ” made panties on—especially if an initial is hand- worked on them. That was the kind Gutierrez was sporting, and the way he got mad when he saw them all covered with red indicated that he thought they were class a foot deep. He let out a snort like a Mexican bull, put down his head and made a pass at Murph that, if it had landed, would have knocked him clear across the international bridge. But it missed and whirled the Mexican clear around twice before he lost his balance and skidded his nose into half a pound of resin that hadn’t been powdered any too well. When he got up, he looked more than peeved and in spite of the fact that he didn’t have on anything but those trunks, I was expecting him to draw a knife from somewhere and start in to end it right now. “Carramba!” He hissed and called a shot for Murph’s mouth. Murph was stané- ing there grinning and almost swallowed the glove. The gong stopped the slugging bee be- fore either of them was killed. The second round started where the first left off. Ol’ Murph wasn’t big enough to stand up and swap punches with this bird, but it was a case of do that or run a Marathon around the ring and drop the decision and the extra twenty-five bucks. Murph took a chance of winning them or losing them like aman. After kissing the canvas three times the gong saved him taking the count the fourth. The Mexican fans were cheering loud enough so that the State officials down at Chihuahua probably thought a new revo- lution had broken out at Juarez. The grin- goes were hooting the management for matching a giant with a welterweight and demanding the fight be called off and the money split even. Murph was about ready to cash in his checks and while the roustabout rubbers in his corner were shaking a wet towel at him and trying to patch him up, I could see the old boy was doing some heavy thinking Gomicvookssco