d Chris himself was looked on as Kid Stupid, because
he claimed the earth was round. The gang he trailed with had it
figured as bein' square like their heads.

The guy that invented the airship was doped out as a boob until the
thing begin to fly, the bird that turned out the first steamboat was
called a potterin' old simp and let him alone and he'd kill
himself--and that's the way it goes.

The sucker is the boy that keeps the wise guys alive. He'll try
anything once, and it don't make no difference to him whether it's
three-card monte or a new kind of submarine. He's the guy that built
all the fancy bridges, the big buildin's, fought and won the wars that
the wise guys started, and fixed things generally so that to-day you
can push a little trick electric button and get anything from a piece
of pie to a divorce. He's the simp that falls for the new minin'
company stock, grins when the wise guys explain to him just how many
kinds of a sucker he is, and then clips coupons while _they're_ gettin'
up early to read the want ads. He's the baby that's done everything
that couldn't be did.

That's the boob!

The boob is the guy that takes all the chances and makes it possible
for old Kid World to keep goin' forward instead of standin' still. Any
burg that's got a couple of sure enough eighteen-carat boobs in it,
known to the trade as suckers, has got a chance.

So the next time somebody calls you a big boob, don't get sore--thank
him. He's boostin' you!

Gimme ten boobs in back of me and I'll take a town, because they'll
take a chance. Gimme a hundred wise guys and the town'll take _us_,
because them birds will have to stop and figure what's the use of
startin' somethin'.

Me for the boobs!

Kid Scanlan was a boob. He was a great battler, a regular fellow and
all like that, but he was a boob just the same. He started fightin'
because he was simp enough to take a chance of havin' his features
altered, and he won the title through bein' stupid enough to mix it
with the welterweight champion. I was the wise guy of the party,
always playin' it safe and seein' what made it go, before I'd take a
chance. But the Kid got a whole lot further than I ever will. He made
a name for himself in the ring and another in the movies and I ain't
champion of _nothin'_--I'm just _with_ Scanlan, that's all.

I'm gettin' offers from promoters here and there to have him start
against some set up for money that was sinful to r