Shorty McCabe | Page 9

he bores in like a stone
crusher for five rounds. Then he stops a cross hook with his jaw and is
jarred some. That brings out the yellow. Spite of all I could say, he

stops rushin' and plays for wind and safety. Think of that, with the
Grasshopper as groggy as a five days old calf! Well, I saw what was
coming to him, right there. When the bell rings I chucks my towel to a
rubber and quits. I hadn't hired out for no wet nurse, and I told the
crowd so.
Just as I was makin' my sneak this quiet-speakin' chap falls in alongside
and begins to talk to me. First off I sized him up for one of them
English Johnnies that had lost his eyeglass. But that's where I was dead
wrong. He wasn't no Johnnie, and he wasn't no tinhorn sport. But he
was a new one on me. They don't grow many like him, I guess, so no
wonder I didn't get wise right away.
"Think the Lamb's all in?" says he.
"All in!" says I. "He never had anything to put in. He was licked before
the bell tapped. And me trainin' him for five weeks! I'm goin' to kick
myself all the way back to New York."
"I'll help you," says he. "I backed that Lamb of yours to win."
"How much?" says I.
"Oh, only a few hundred."
"But you ain't seen him licked yet," says I.
"I'll take your word for it," says he.
Say, that was no tinhorn play, was it? He goes off and leaves his good
money up, just on a flier like that.
"You're the real goods," says I.
"I can return the sentiment," says he.
So we took the midnight East. When we got the morning papers at
Omaha we saw that the Lamb only lasted half-way through the seventh,
and 'possumed the count at that. Well, we got some acquainted before

we hit Chicago, and by the time we'd landed in Jersey City I'd signed
articles with him for a year. He calls it secretary, but I holds out for
sparrin' partner.
Oh, he can handle the mitts some, all right; none of your parlor Y. M. C.
A. business, either, but give and take. He strips at one hundred and
forty and can stand punishment like a stevedore. But, of course, there's
no chance of ever gettin' him on the platform. He likes to go his four
rounds before dinner, just to take the drab coloring off the world in
general. That's the way he puts it.
Take him all around, he's a thoroughbred. I know that much, but after
that I don't follow him. I used to wonder sometimes. Give most
Johnnies his pile and turn 'em loose, and what would they do? They'd
wear out the club window-sills, and take in pink teas, and do the
society turn. But not for him. He's a mixer, the Boss is. He wants to see
things, all kinds.
Sometimes he lugs me along and sometimes he don't. It all depends on
whether I'd fit in. When he heads for Fifth Avenue I know I'm let out.
But when he gets into a sack coat and derby hat I'm bettin' that maybe
we'll fetch up somewheres on the East Side. Perhaps it'll be the grand
annual ball of the Truck Drivers' Association, or just one of them
Anarchist talkfests in the back room of some beer parlor. There's no
telling. We may drink muddy coffee out of dinky brass cups with a lot
of Syrian rug sellers down on Washington Street, or drop into the
middle of a gang of sailors down on Front Street.
And I'm no bodyguard, mind. The Boss ain't in much need of that. But
he likes to have some one to talk to, and I guess most of his friends
don't go in for such promiscuous visitin' lists as he does. I like it well
enough, but where he gets any fun out of it I can't see. I put it up to him
once, and what do you suppose he says? Asks me if I ever heard of a
duck by the name of Panzy de Lean.
"Sounds kind of familiar," says I. "Don't he run a hotel or something
down to Palm Beach?"

"You're warm," says the Boss, "but you've mixed your dates. Old
Panzy struck the east coast about four hundred years before our friend
Flagler annexed it. And he wasn't in the hotel business. Exploring was
his line. He was looking for a new kind of mineral water that he was
going to call the Elixir of Life. Well, in some ways Panzy and I are
alike."
It was a josh, all right, that he was handin' out,