rough in the clinches,
everything he knew, and Arthur learned awful quick. So quick that we
had to cut the bouts down to twenty minutes each, because the big guy
didn't _know_ and he was _tryin'_ with every punch!

The doctors told Scanlan to talk operation to him, and the Kid tried it
once. Arthur stopped boxin' and looked at him so reproachful that
Scanlan refused to mention it again. He said he looked just like a kid
that come down Christmas mornin' and found no tree.

Finally, me and the Kid packed up and kissed the sanitarium good-by,
but every afternoon at three we went over and Scanlan put on the gloves
with Arthur for a while, because I had give my word to his girl.
Arthur got so he lived all the rest of the day and night lookin'
forward to three o'clock in the afternoon. He snarled at the doctors,
cuffed the orderlies, didn't know Miss Woods from the iron gate that
kept him in there, but the minute Scanlan breezed into the yard with
the gloves his face would be one big smile.

This went on for three months--and then Miss Vincent stepped into the
thing.

She wanted to know where the Kid was goin' every afternoon at three
o'clock, and like a simp, I told her the whole story. She thanks me
with a odd look that I didn't get till that night, when the Kid comes
tearin' in to our room at the hotel and slams the door. When he gets
where he can make his tongue do like he asks it, he says it's all off
between him and Miss Vincent. By usin' some judgment and four hours of
time I find out that Miss Vincent thinks this stuff about the Kid
boxin' Arthur is a lot of bunk and the Kid was really goin' back to the
sanitarium every day to see Miss Woods. She has give that nurse the
once over and then used some woman's arithmetic which makes two and two
equal nine, get me? Well, one word led to another, and finally she
tells him if he don't cut the sanitarium out, she's off him for life.

That's a bad way to handle Scanlan. He's Irish and--you know!

He told her we give our word and he was gonna box Arthur till they
remodeled Arthur's skull, no matter what happened. Then Miss Vincent
gets sensible and weeps. In a minute the Kid is on his knees, and she
shows more sense than usual by chasin' him at that point. At the
bottom of the stairs, Scanlan calls up and asks if he can kiss her good
night. She tells him it's too late now, he has missed the
psychological moment.

That last was what had the Kid up in the ai