gain. "Say!" he
asks me. "Who d'ye like to win the battle of Santiago and d'ye think
Lincoln will git elected again?"

"I don't know," I comes back. "I'm gonna vote for Jefferson myself!"
I looks him right in the eye. "I think Washington is a sucker to hang
around Valley Forge all winter, don't you?" I asks him.

"Couple of small time cut-ups, eh?" he says, shakin' his head. "Where
d'ye come from?"

"New York," the Kid tells him, "and listen--will you do me a favor and
let's hear some more about them likable Lithuanians and gobs of
generous Gazoopis?"

"I figured you come from some hick burg like New York," says the runt,
ignorin' the Kid's request. "I can spot a guy from New York ten miles
away! He knocks Brooklyn, thinks walkin' up Broadway is seein' life,
was born in Memphis and is the only thing that keeps the mail order
houses in Oshkosh from goin' to the wall! New Yorkers, eh?" he winds
up with another insultin' sneer. "I got you!"

"Gobs of generous Gazoopis!" mutters the Kid like he's in a trance.
"Sweet Papa!"

The runt looks at him.

"How does _that_ bird fool the almshouse?" he asks me.

I bent down so's I could whisper in the side of his little dome. Them
skilled Scandinavians in the buildin' had gone crazy or else some of
the night shift had come in with more boilers and things to hit 'em
with.

"That's Kid Scanlan, welterweight champion of the world!" I hisses in
his ear.

"Ha, ha!" laughs the runt. "That's who he'd _like_ to be, you mean!"

"Our employees is all hale, hearty and hilarious!" grins the Kid at
him. "We pay 'em off in money, music and mush! Wow!"

"If that big stiff is tryin' to kid me," begins the runt, gettin' red
again, "he--"

"All right, all right!" I butts in quickly. "Don't let's have no
violence. Show us what makes that shop go, and we'll grab the next
rattler for New York. Y'know the Kid fights Battlin' Edwards on the
twenty-first and--"

"Are you on the _level_ with that stuff?" interrupts the runt, still
lookin' at the Kid. "Is that really Kid Scanlan?"

I calls the Kid over.

"Kid," I says, "meet Mister--er--"

"Sapp," says the runt. "Joe Sapp!" He sticks out his hand. "I
remember you now," he tells the Kid. "I seen you fight some tramp in
Fort Wayne last year. I think you hit this guy with everything but the
referee and that's why I like your work. When _I_ send in three bucks
for a place to sit down at a box fight, I expect to see a