was laying on the floor in a
drug-store saturated with aromatic spirits of ammonia. If I'd known
that was Reddy Burns, I'd have got down in the gutter and crawled past
him instead of handing him one like I did. Why, if I'd ever been in a
ring and seen him climbing over the ropes, I'd have been all to the
sal-volatile.

"So that's what imagination does," concluded Mack. "And, as I said,
your case and mine is simultaneous. You'll never win out. You can't
go up against the professionals. I tell you, it's a park bench for
yours in this romance business."

Mack, the pessimist, laughed harshly.

"I'm afraid I don't see the parallel," I said, coldly. "I have only a
very slight acquaintance with the prize-ring."

The derelict touched my sleeve with his forefinger, for emphasis, as
he explained his parable.

"Every man," said he, with some dignity, "has got his lamps on
something that looks good to him. With you, it's this dame that
you're afraid to say your say to. With me, it was to win out in the
ring. Well, you'll lose just like I did."

"Why do you think I shall lose?" I asked warmly.

"'Cause," said he, "you're afraid to go in the ring. You dassen't
stand up before a professional. Your case and mine is just the same.
You're a amateur; and that means that you'd better keep outside of the
ropes."

"Well, I must be going," I said, rising and looking with elaborate
care at my watch.

When I was twenty feet away the park-bencher called to me.

"Much obliged for the dollar," he said. "And for the dime. But
you'll never get 'er. You're in the amateur class."

"Serves you right," I said to myself, "for hobnobbing with a tramp.
His impudence!"

But, as I walked, his words seemed to repeat themselves over and over
again in my brain. I think I even grew angry at the man.

"I'll show him!" I finally said, aloud. "I'll show him that I can
fight Reddy Burns, too--even knowing who he is."

I hurried to a telephone-booth and rang up the Telfair residence.

A soft, sweet voice answered. Didn't I know that voice? My hand
holding the receiver shook.

"Is that _you_?" said I, employing the foolish words that form the
vocabulary of every talker through the telephone.

"Yes, this is I," came back the answer in the low, clear-cut tones
that are an inheritance of the Telfairs. "Who is it, please?"

"It's me," said I, less ungrammatically than egotistically. "It's me,
and I've got a few things that I want to say to you righ