Side-stepping with Shorty Part 27

"Like to have you try a round or so, Vickers," puts in Chester, as careless as he could. "Professor McCabe will show you how to put them on."

"Ah, really?" says Curlylocks. Then he has to step up and inspect Chester's frame up.

"That's the finish!" thinks I; for Chetty's a well built boy, good and bunchy around the shoulders, and when he peels down to a sleeveless jersey he looks 'most as wicked as Sharkey. But, just as we're expectin' Curlylocks to show how wise he was, he throws out a bluff that leaves us gaspin' for breath.

"Do you know," says he, "if I was in the mood for that sort of thing, I'd be charmed; but--er----"

"Oh, fudge!" says Chetty. "I expect you'd rather recite us some poetry?" And at that one of Chester's chums snickers right out.

Sylvie flushes up like some one had slapped him on the wrist.

"Beg pardon," says he; "but I believe I will try it for a little while," and he holds out his paws for me to slip on the gloves.

"Better shed the parlour clothes," says I. "You're liable to get 'em dusty," which last tickles the audience a lot.

He didn't want to peel off even his Tuxedo; but jollies him into lettin' go of it, and partin' with his collar and white tie and eye gla.s.ses too. That was as far as he'd go, though.

Course, it was kind of a low down game to put up on anybody; but Curlylocks wa'n't outcla.s.sed any in height, nor much in weight; and, seein' as how he'd kind of laid himself open to something of the sort, I didn't feel as bad as I might. All the time, Chester was tryin' to keep the grin off his face, and his chums was most wearin' their elbows out nudgin' each other.

"Now," says I, when I've got Curlylocks ready for the slaughter, "what'll it be--two-minute rounds?"

"Quite satisfactory," says Sylvie; and Chetty nods.

"Then let 'er go!" says I, steppin' back.

One thing I've always coached Chester on, was openin' lively. It don't make any difference whether the mitts are hard or soft, whether it's a go to a finish or a private bout for fun, there's no sense in wastin'

the first sixty seconds in stirrin' up the air. The thing to do is to bore in. And Chester didn't need any urgin'. He cuts loose with both bunches, landin' a right on the ribs and pokin' the left into the middle of Sylvie's map; so sudden that Mr. Poet heaves up a grunt way from his socks.

"Ah, string it out, Chetty," says I. "String it out, so's it'll last longer."

But he's like a hungry kid with a hokypoky sandwich,--he wants to take it all at one bite. And maybe if I'd been as much gone on Angelica as he was, and had been put on a siding for this moonlight po'try business, I'd been just as anxious. So he wades in again with as fine a set of half arm jolts as he has in stock.

By this time Sylvie has got his guard up proper, and is coverin'

himself almost as good as if he knew how. He does it a little awkward; but somehow, Chetty couldn't seem to get through.

"Give him the cross hook!" sings out one of the boys.

Chester tries, but it didn't work. Then he springs another rush, and they goes around like a couple of pinwheels, with nothin' gettin'

punished but the gloves.

"Time!" says I, and leads Sylvie over to a chair. He was puffin' some, but outside of that he was as good as new. "Good blockin', old man,"

says I. "You're doin' fine. Keep that up and you'll be all right."

"Think so?" says he, reachin' for the towel.

The second spasm starts off different. Curlylocks seems to be more awake than he was, and the first thing we knows he's fiddlin' for an openin' in the good old fashioned way.

"And there's where you lose out, son," thinks I.

I hadn't got through thinkin' before things begun happenin'. Sylvie seems to unlimber from the waist up, and his arms acted like he'd let out an extra link in 'em. Funny I hadn't noticed that reach of his before. For a second or so he only steps around Chester, shootin' out first one glove and then the other, and plantin' little love pats on different parts of him, as if he was locatin' the right spots.

Chetty don't like havin' his b.u.mps felt of that way, and comes back with a left swing followed by an upper cut. They was both a little wild, and they didn't connect. That wa'n't the worst of it, though.

Before he's through with that foolishness Sylvie turns them long arms of his into a rapid fire battery, and his mitts begin to touch up them spots he's picked out at the rate of about a hundred bull's eyes to the minute. It was bing--bing--bing--biff!--with Chetty's arms swingin'

wide, and his block rockin', and his breath comin' short, and his knees gettin' as wabbly as a new boy speakin' a piece. Before I can call the round Curlylocks has put the steam into a jaw punch that sends Chester to the mat as hard as though he'd been dropped out of a window.

"Is--is it all over?" says Chetty when he comes to, a couple of minutes later.

"If you leave it to me," says I, "I should say it was; unless Mr.

What's-his-name here wants to try that same bunch of tricks on me. How about it?"

"Much obliged, professor," says Curlylocks, givin' a last hitch to his white tie; "but I've seen you in the ring."

"Well," says I, "I've heard you recite po'try; so we're even. But say, you make a whole lot better showin' in my line than I would in yours, and if you ever need a backer in either, just call on me."

We shakes hands on that; and then Chetty comes to the front, man fashion, with his flipper out, too. That starts the reunion, and when I leaves 'em, about one A. M., the Scotch and ginger ale tide was runnin' out fast.

How about Angelica? Ah, say, next mornin' there shows up a younger, fresher, gushier one than she is, and inside of half an hour her and Curlylocks is close together on a bench, and he's got the little book out again. Angelica pines in the background for about three minutes before Chester comes around with the tourin' car, and the last I see of 'em they was snuggled up together in the back of the tonneau. So I guess Chetty don't need much sympathisin' with, even if he was pa.s.sed a couple of lime drops.

XIII

GIVING BOMBAZOULA THE HOOK

Maybe I was tellin' you something about them two rockin' chair commodores from the yacht club, that I've got on my reg'lar list?

They're some of Pinckney's crowd, you know, and that's just as good as sayin' they're more ornamental than useful. Anyway, that description's a close fit for Purdy.

First off I couldn't stand for Purdy at all. He's one of these natty, band box chappies, with straw coloured hair slicked down as smooth as if he'd just come up from a dive, and a costume that looks as if it might have been copied from a stained gla.s.s window. You've seen them symphonies in greys and browns, with everything matched up, from their shirt studs to their shoes b.u.t.tons? Now, I don't mind a man's bein' a swell dresser--I've got a few hot vests myself--but this tryin' to be a Mr. Pastelle is runnin' the thing into the ground.

Purdy could stand all the improvin' the tailor could hand him, though.

His eyes was popped just enough to give him a continual surprised look, and there was more or less of his face laid out in nose. Course, he wa'n't to blame for that; but just the same, when he gets to comin' to the Studio twice a week for glove work and the chest weights, I pa.s.ses him over to Swifty Joe. Honest, I couldn't trust myself to hit around that nose proper. But Swifty uses him right. Them clothes of Purdy's had got Swifty goin', and he wouldn't have mussed him for a farm.

After I'd got used to seein' Purdy around, I didn't mind him so much myself. He seemed to be a well meanin', quiet, sisterly sort of a duck, one of the kind that fills in the corners at afternoon teas, and wears out three pairs of pumps every winter leadin' cotillions. You'll see his name figurin' in the society notes: how Mrs. Burgess Jones gave a dinner dance at Sherry's for the younger set, and the cotillion was led by Mr. Purdy Bligh. Say, how's that as a steady job for a grown man, eh?

But so long as I'm treated square by anyone, and they don't try to throw any lugs around where I am, I don't feel any call to let 'em in on my private thoughts. So Purdy and me gets along first rate; and the next thing I knows he's callin' me Shorty, and bein' as glad to see me when he comes in as if I was one of his old pals. How you goin' to dodge a thing of that kind? And then, 'fore I knows what's comin', I'm right in the middle of this Bombazoula business.

It wa'n't anything I b.u.t.ted into on purpose, now you can take that straight. It was this way: I was doin' my reg'lar afternoon stroll up the avenue, not payin' much attention to anything in particular, when a cab pulls up at the curb, and I looks around, to see Purdy leanin' over the ap.r.o.n and makin' motions at me with his cane.

"h.e.l.lo!" says I. "Have they got you strapped in so you can't get out?"

"By Jove!" says he, "I never thought of jumping out, you know. Beg pardon, old man, for hailing you in that fashion, but----"

"Cut it!" says I. "I ain't so proud as all that. What's doin'?"

"It's rather a rummy go," says he; "but where can I buy some snakes?"

"That's rummy, all right," says I. "Have you tried sendin' him to an inst.i.tute?"