Argosy All-Story Weekly, July 1, 1922 — page 77: what you’re looking at

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

THE FIST IN PACIFIST. with enthusiastic strangers, answering ques- tions fired at him by zealous young report- ers, smirking at the pretty girls who stood on the very tips of their smart little boots to get a glimpse of the fighting male. Pax, strolling in at a quarter past the hour, decided to wait until the crowd thinned out a bit before getting his errand over with. He sank into a big leather chair, closely observed by three stern, silent men detailed by Sarcophagus to see that he omitted no detail. Beside him sat a plump, nervous little sport who looked like a prosperous travel- ing agent. He tapped the young man on the arm. “A fine-built feller, hey, mister? I betcha he wouldn’t take no back talk from any man alive! Am I right?” “Oh, I don’t know,” Pax responded list- lessly. Then, as a thought occured to him, a twinkle came to his eyes. “Tl bet I could walk right up to him now and call him a big cheese, and get away with it!” “T got fifty says you ain’t got the noive, mister!” The little man dug suggestively in his pants’ pocket. Pax hesitated, and then he, too, fished his pockets. He had a trifle over ten dol- lars with him. “Can I throw in my watch?” he asked. ‘““Lemme see it!” The sport pried it open as 2 squirrel opens a nut, and squinted wisely into its inwards. ‘“‘ Tt ain’t worth it, but just to be a sport, I'll let it go in for twenty dollars,” he de- cided. “Wait a minute, then.” Pax rose, crossed over to a group of class- mates, and after a brief consultation, re- turned with twenty dollars. “ Here’s my fifty, then,” he said. “ Who shall we get to hold it?” The captain of the bell hops—invariably a sporting gentleman—was decided upon, as both knew him. He pocketed the money, together with Pax’s watch. “‘Here’s where ya lose a timepiece, fel- ler!” he said. ‘“ Nobody can call that bird outa his name and keep his health!”’ 867 “Oh, I don’t know,” Pax murmured. The crowd was not quite so dense now. He rose, drew a deep breath, buttoned his coat, and began to work his way slowly to- ward the center of the lobby, where the gorgeously arrayed battler was “ telling the world,” from one corner of his wide, cruel mouth. | Let it not be thought that Pax was sus- tained by the gallant spirit of the martyr, the leader of forlorn hopes. The publicity irked him, but he felt not the slightest tremor of fear. Riley, he had doped it out, would either deluge him with vulgar pro- fanity, or he would reach for his jaw. He would be justified in doing either, or both; but Pax would not remain to hear, or feel. He would be charging down the lobby to: ward Main Street. He would return to col- lect his bet on a more auspicious occasion! The middleweight glanced apathetically at the youth who stood before him, and made ready to shake hands for the seven hundred and thirty-first time that day. But Pax did not tender his hand, nor did his face break out into the fawning smile of a fistic fan. Instead, he looked Riley square m the eyes, and in a high, clear voice like one reciting something carefully memorized he cried: “ Riley, you big hunk of cheese, you've got a streak of yellow as wide as our, campus!” The pugilist did not know what a cam- pus was; but the rest of the sentence was perfectly clear to him, being garnished with the simple yet beautiful figures of speech he himself oft employed. A flicker of utter incredulity in his eyes was_ instantly quenched by simian rage. Riley might be in nearly every conceiv- able respect inferior to Pax Rogers. But he possessed to the fullest degree one attribute that every successful fighter must have. He may be out of condition; a coward, both moral and physical; muscle-bound, yellow even; and still win many a fight. But this one quality he must have: his reaction time must be so infinitesimal that the response of the muscle must seem to coincide with, or even to precede, conscious thought. It was so with Riley; and it made all the careful plans of Pax count for naught. For he did not curse nor strike, as his reply to comicloool C©