ewspaper
offices back home and strikes a fightin' pose.

A couple of women shrieks and runs back of the trees hidin' their faces
and Miss Vincent falls in a chair and laughs herself sick. To say the
Kid created a sensation would be puttin' it mild--he was a riot! The
rest of the bunch howls out loud, holdin' their sides and staggerin' up
against each other, and the stage hands rolled around the floor. But
the guy that was runnin' the thing, this Duke person, almost faints,
and then he gets red in the face and jumps down off the platform.

"What do you mean?" he screams at the Kid. "What do you mean by coming
out before these ladies and gentlemen in that garb? How dare you? Is
that your interpretation of Richard the Third? Have you been drinking
or what?"

"What's the matter, pal?" asks the Kid, lookin' surprised. "I got to
wear _somethin'_, don't I?"

Off goes the bunch howlin' again.

"If this is a joke, sir," yells Duke, "it will be a mighty costly one
for you!"

This De Vronde has been standin' on the side lookin' on and the Kid,
seein' Miss Vincent, waves a glove at her. She waves back holdin' her
side and smiles.

"Haw! Haw! Haw!" roars this De Vronde guy. "How droll!"

The Kid is over to him in two steps. He's seen that everybody is
givin' him the laugh and he realizes he's in wrong somehow, but the
thing has him puzzled.

"Where d'ye get that 'haw, haw' stuff?" he snarls, stickin' his chin
out in front of De Vronde.

"Why, you ignorant ass!" sneers De Vronde, out loud, so's Miss Vincent
can hear him. "If you had any brains you'd know!"

"I don't need no brains!" snaps the Kid, settin' himself. "I got
_this_!"

And he drops De Vronde with a right hook to the jaw!

"Boys!" screams Duke, pointin' to the Kid. "Throw that ruffian out!"

A couple of big huskies makes a dash for the Kid, and I figured I might
as well get in the thing now as later, so I tripped one as he was goin'
past and the Kid bounces the other with a short left. De Vronde jumps
up and hits the Kid over the head with a cane, while Miss Vincent
screams and hollers "Coward!" Then a bunch of supers comes runnin' in
from the back just as the Kid puts De Vronde down for keeps, and in a
minute everybody was in there tryin'.

Everybody but one guy, and he was turnin' the crank of his camera like
he was gettin' paid by the number of revolutions the thing made.

While it lasted, it was some fracas, as we say at the studi