Argosy All-Story Weekly, April 19, 1924 — page 123: what you’re looking at

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

GENTLE worth a hundred thousand berries te you— then you can go on with this here paint brush.” “Do you think I could lick him?” he asks; and I sees I is getting him warmed up a little. ‘Sure,’ I says, confidentially. ‘‘ When you has put in a year slapping a !ot of sec- ond and third rate bums fer practice, I can scale you right up the wall to the top notches—then we can trim some real beards and match you with Micky, and if you gets as far as shootin’ at him in the ring, and if you is so lucky as to paste him for a ashcan, you can write your own ticket and go on with art.” ‘“Do you think I could do it?” he asks again, getting kind of red in the face, like the steam of ambition is beginning to blow through his pipes. This gets me crazy, as I sees at last I has got this banana head worked up, and once I get a guy worked up, I don’t give him no chance to get cold on me. “You betcher life you can do it!” I howls, banging the table with my fist. They is a crash and some bottles of ink, pens and some other little ornaments hits the floor; but I is so busy I don’t pay no attention to them—and this dodo is standing there in the candle light staring at me like he has just been let out of a asylum. I knows he is all wound and ticking for some good ora- tory on my part, so I lets go. “Tm goin’ to take you over to Handle’s gym to-morrow and put you to work. I is goin’ to make you the prize heavyweight champ of this here countryside. And right here and now, we makes a agreement, which I will write down with your ink and you will sign it. In this here agreement, I states that after you has smacked all the good boys to sleep, and has busted Micky Squires for a hulled peanut, I is goin’ to help you with your fight on art. Whata you say, kid?” “Do you think I could do it?” he asks, leaning across the table and getting me by the back of the neck. For a minute, I think he is going to twist my throat into a jelly roll, and I will state here and now that I don’t never want this baloney to get mad at me and shake me for a feather duster. 8 A GENDER. 593 “Sure you can do it!” I yells, jumping up and down. “ Find the papers—we will make them out right now.” ‘“ All right,” he says, letting go of my neck and locking down at the floor. “ Pll do it. But I has to go on with my art, and when I has fights, I ain’t goin’ to hurt nobody.” ‘‘ No,” I says, as I reaches excitedly for a sheet of paper. ‘‘ They is goin’ to hurt you first.” III. THe day we walks into Handle’s gym somebody goes ahead on the floor and tells the tough boys that a circus has arrived and that I has captured the prize hyena of them all. I gets Joe stripped all right and slips him into some running pants and a light gym shirt. I has a hard time getting him onto the floor where I expects to start him off on the bag punchin’ and some light exer- cises to loosen him up. Say, boys, if you has ever seen a clean _ limbed lad, you don’t know nothin’ about how this gent looks. I has seen some funny figures in my life, but this here ain’t no figure at all. He is just a great, big, awk- ward lookin’ animal with arms as smooth as a baby’s and you wouldn’t never think that — he had no hittin’ power tucked away in his mitts. He kinda bends forward at the waist and when he walks, he swings from side to side like a great big ape walkin’ up on you. : He is kinda nervous when I takes him by the arm and says we will go out and do a little light work. I leads him on the same as if he is a camel tied to the end of arope. Pete Wells, a pretty good welter- weight, is on the floor and doin’ a little workout with One-round Poppy, a second rate heavyweight that hits like a mule and is pretty fair with his boxing abilities. They is several other guys standin’ round lookin’ on, including Sweeney Marks, the manager of two or three good boys which has been tryin’ to break into the ring to smack Micky Squires. Everybody lays off the workout as we steps onto the floor, and I hears Sweeney do a horse laugh. I ain’t never had no love fer that sausage, and he knows it; and every Eomicboo ‘SiGCOM : - yt é Pyar ot a teL ahh laters