Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 39: what you’re looking at

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

score one. SO THIS IS —— tern Gosia aes as aotisia mere than an elaborate and highly specialized scheme — of ward politics, based upon unquestioning service, supported by graft, and SER BEEDE its units therefrom. The saffron journals he read supported this view, the soap-box orations strength- -. ened it, ‘and its complete reasonableness appealed to his intelligence, which was that of a precocious and observant urchin. Meet Mr. James “Slapper” Dunn, if you are not over fussy whom you meet, And that you may at the outset see him as completely as possible, meet him in Porky _ Phelan’s School of Physical Culture, over ‘Stein’s garage on C Street. He wears only sketchy trunks, gym shoes, soiled eight- ounce mitts, and a tantalizing smile. ‘He is just turned twenty-one, and has been a voter for three years. He strips at a hundred and thirty, has a flat chest and ~ th: thin, wiry limbs. He is pasty colored, but 3 with that strange vitality of the slum dwell- - er who succeeds in weathering infant mor- tality. His features are unmarred, and ‘not unpleasing, hair brown, eyes ditto, teeth sound though stained with nicotine, as are several of his fingers. and manicured, and maintaining silence, he would pass as a college sophomore or a bank or hotel. clerk or automobile sales- man, or almost anything “undisti yet respectable. _ Just at present he is squaring off at Kay- G Dugan, a husky welter nearly as hairy and quite as grouchy as a young gorilla. Whatever he hits, falls down. Porky Phe-_ jan is trying to make a boxer out of him, _ and the Slapper is giving him a workout. 3 Observe him closely, and learn how he = acquired his moniker. Kay-O moves about flat-footed, hunched up, with outthrust. jaw and a jook of grim determination. He : is always willmg to- take two wallops to Trouble is, he usually takes more than two, without scoring any. The lighter lad circles him as a sub-chaser ~ might dart about a coal barge. He dances -—— 6p the balls of his feet, his hands moving - ~ in and out, the aggravating grin 3 never leav- : 8 his. lips. He ties Kay-0 ip ip Knots, Saul den i a haymaker, he juins ke bead see ‘making him miss by a hair. Then he se blind on one side. And now appears the haunts. - Properly clad: - ‘both places at once, he stips the Sk WEDLOCK! merest fraction of an inch, or side-ste out with open glove, and stings nose or eye, Finally, behold! _ He brushes Kay-O’s good right lamp, turning in a couple of winkers and making it water. Like a flash, the | Slapper shifts over to the blind side, while Kay-O flounders clumsily about, complete: ae ly off balance. == Now! You say: For the finishing punch! For Kay-O is wide open, and reason for Dunn’s alias. He doesn’t pack any wallop! He can’t punch, and knows = — it. While Kay-O carries the deep sleep, == but can’t connect. If Dunn had his kick, — or Dugan his speed, a new star Soul twinkle in the fistic firmament. But the > 1 LS aad a hasn’t. Porky Phelan paar ‘slips the Slapper two fish. Merely that we may get fo ‘know as him a little better, let us follow him for the — 2 remainder a the CBR in Be a it is just nine Sa e “The § Slapper go = = into Jocko’s pool room, pausing to Walt —— couple of corned beef sandwiches, a dill = — pickle and a cup of coffee at the lunch ———— counter before settling down to bottle a in the rear. An hour later he emerges with =~ : his two dollars, and five more. He drifts — Se | down the line, and sits into a two-bit game with the chauffeurs in a garage specializing = in stolen cars. He deals a nasty hand = = "poker, but is up against some very good . home-made paper to-night, which he Es ‘to detect. At eleven, he rises from the oif — can he is sitting on, tosses his half-smoked — = cigarette into a pile of waste, ae toll = —— out flat broke. = = = Fifteen minutes later he sume into — Shadow Rosoff, who deals in case lots bear-_ ing forged labels He has just had two hurry-up orders, and as he cannot be. in a-sawbuck to deliver two suit cases to = —_ of sna breathes: One the lal sing : S ade ‘at him. When the other throws and ; gives: a = e to deliver