r two tickets for a show for Burke, before this here
Burke is in town two hours already. Klinger looked pretty sore about it,
Mawruss."

"What show is he taking Burke to?" Morris asked.

"It ain't a show exactly," Abe replied hastily; "it's a prize-fight."

"A fight!" Morris cried. "That's an idea, ain't it?--to take a customer
to a fight."

"I know it, Mawruss," Abe rejoined, "but you got to remember that the
customer's name is also Burke. What for a show did you buy it tickets
for?"

Morris blushed. "Travvy-ayter," he murmured.

"Travvy-ayter!" Abe replied. "Why, that's an opera, ain't it?"

Morris nodded. He had intended to combine business with pleasure by
taking Burke to hear Tetrazzini.

"Well, you got your idees, too, Mawruss," Abe continued; "and I don't
know that they're much better as this here Walsh's idees."

"Ain't they, Abe?" Morris replied. "Well, maybe they ain't, Abe. But
just because I got a loafer for a customer ain't no reason why I should
be a loafer myself, Abe."

"Must you take a customer to a show, Mawruss?" Abe rejoined. "Is there a
law compelling it, Mawruss?"

Morris shrugged his shoulders.

"Anyhow, Abe," he said, "I don't see that _you_ got any kick coming,
because I'm going to give them tickets to you and Rosie, Abe, and youse
two can take in the show."

"And where are you going, Mawruss?"

"Me?" Morris replied. "I'm going to a prize-fighting, Abe. I don't give
up so easy as all that."

On his way home that night Morris consulted an evening paper, and when
he turned to the sporting page he found the upper halves of seven
columns effaced by a huge illustration executed in the best style of
Jig, the Sporting Cartoonist. In the left-hand corner crouched Slogger
Atkins, the English lightweight, while opposite to him in the right-hand
corner stood Young Kilrain, poised in an attitude of defense. Underneath
was the legend, "The Contestants in Tomorrow Night's Battle." By
reference to Jig's column Morris ascertained that the scene of the fight
would be at the Polygon Club's new arena in the vicinity of Harlem
Bridge, and at half past eight Saturday night he alighted from a Third
Avenue L train at One Hundred and Twenty-ninth Street and followed the
crowd that poured over the bridge.

It was nine o'clock before Morris gained admission to the huge frame
structure that housed the arena of the Polygon Club. Having just paid
five dollars as a condition precedent to membership in go