I

I suppose you could call it a frame. But it wasn’t like no frame that was ever pulled before. They’s been plenty where one guy was paid to lay down. This is the first I heard of where a guy had to be bribed to win. And it’s the first where a bird was bribed and didn’t know it.

You know they’ve postponed the match with Britton. Nate said at first that his boy wasn’t ready yet, but the papers all kidded him. Because anybody that seen Burke in the Kemp fight knows he’s ready. So Nate had to change his story and say Burke had hurt one of his hands on Kemp’s egg, and he wasn’t going to take no chance boxing again till he was OK, which mightn’t be for a couple of months. Say, Kemp’s head may be hard, but it ain’t hard enough to hurt one of them hands of Burkey’s. He could play catch with Big Bertha.

No, they’s another reason why Nate ast for a postponement of the Britton date. It’s got to be another frame-up that may take a long w’ile to fix, and he ain’t got no plans made yet. And till he’s all set, he’d be a dumbbell to send Burke against a man as good as Jack Britton.

The papers has printed a lot of stuff about Burke⁠—how he ain’t only been boxing a little over a year, and won’t be twenty-one till next July, and five or six bouts is all he’s been in, and now look at him, offered a match for the welterweight championship and $10,000 win, lose or draw! But if they knew Burke like some of us knows him, they could write a book. Because he certainly is Duke of the Cuckoos and the world’s greatest sap. How they got him ready for the Kemp bout is a story in itself, but it won’t come out till he’s through with the game. So what I tell you is between you and I.

It was one afternoon about a year ago. Bill Brennan was in Kid Howard’s gymnasium in Chi, working out, and they was a gang looking on. Howard seen one boy in the crowd that you couldn’t help from noticing. He was made up for one of the hicks in Way Down East. He’d bought his collar in Akron and his coat sleeves died just south of his elbow. From his pants to his vest was a toll call. He hadn’t never shaved and his w’iskers was just the right number and len’th to string a violin. Thinks Howard to himself: “If you seen a stage rube dressed like that, you’d say it was overdone.”

Well, it got late and the gang thinned out till finally they wasn’t nobody left but Howard and this sap. So Howard ast him if he wanted to see somebody.

“Yes,” said the kid. “I want to see a man that can learn me to fight.”

So Howard ast him if he meant box.

“Box or fight, I don’t care which, just so’s I can learn the rules,” said the hick.

“Did you ever box?” says Howard.

“No,” says the kid, “but I can learn quick and I’m willing to pay for it. I got plenty of money. I got pretty close to $700.”

Howard ast him what was his name and where he come from and his business.

“My name’s Burke and I work on my old man’s farm,” he says. “It’s acrost the Lake, outside of Benton Harbor. We raise peaches.”

“Has your old man got money?” ast Howard.

“Plenty,” says the kid.

“Well,” said Howard, “if you work on a farm, you’re getting plenty of exercise. And if your old man’s rich, you ain’t after the sugar. So what’s the idear of going into this game?”

“I don’t want to go in no game,” he says. “I just want to learn good enough so’s I can win this one match and then I’m through.”

“What one match?” says Howard.

“With Charley Porter,” says Burke.

Well, of course you’ve heard of Charley Porter. He’s a Benton Harbor boy too. He’d fought Lewis twice and Britton once and he’d give them both a sweet battle. He was considered about fourth or fifth best amongst the welters. So it struck Howard funny that this green rube, that hadn’t never boxed, should think he could take a few lessons and then be good enough to beat a boy like Porter.

“You’re an ambitious kid,” he says to him, “but if I was you I’d take my seven hundred men and invest it some other way. Porter’s had forty fights, and that’s what counts. You could take all the lessons in the world, and he’d make a monkey out of you. Unless you’re a boy wonder or something. But even if you are, you couldn’t get no match with Porter till you’d proved it. And that means you’d have to beat some other good boys first.”

So Burke said: “All I come to Chicago for is to take some boxing lessons. They told me you was the man to come and see. If I’m willing to pay the money, it shouldn’t ought to make no difference to you if I get a match with Porter or not. Or if I lick him or not.”

“That’s right,” said Howard. “Only I ain’t no burglar or no con man. I’m in this business for money, but I don’t want to take nobody’s money without they get what they think they’re paying for. And if you had seven million smackers I couldn’t guarantee to make you a good boxer, not good enough to land you a match with Porter.”

“I ain’t asking you to land no match,” says Burke. “I’ll tend to that part. He’ll fight me as soon as I think I’m ready. If he don’t, I’ll run him out of Michigan. He wouldn’t dast stay round there if everybody was saying I had him scared. And that’s what they’d say if he wouldn’t fight me.”

“Why would they?” says Howard. “He’s in the game for money, too, and he couldn’t get no money for a bout with a guy like you that nobody ever heard of. They wouldn’t no club match you up.”

“I won’t have no trouble getting matched up,” says Burke. “Fitzsimmons will put us on right there in Benton Harbor. The town’s nuts over Porter and they’ll pay to see him any time. And whatever purse they offer is all his. I’ll fight him for nothing.”

“Oh!” says Howard. “That makes it different! You’re sore at him!”

“No,” says the hick, “I’m not sore at him.”

“You just don’t like him,” says Howard.

“I don’t know if I like him or not,” said Burke. “I don’t even know him.”

“But for some reason you want to give him a trimming,” says Howard. “Well, listen, boy: I understand they’s no capital punishment in your State, so it looks to me like you’d run less risk of getting killed if you’d sneak in Porter’s house some night w’ile he’s asleep and kiss him on the brow with a meat ax.”

Burke didn’t crack a smile.

“That wouldn’t get me nowheres,” he said. “They’s a reason I got to box him. If you can learn me, all right. If not, I’ll go somewheres else.”

So Howard made a date for him to come back the next day.

II

Well, when the kid stripped for action, Howard’s eyes popped out. With them comic clothes on, he’d looked awkward; he was a picture with them off. Howard says he felt like inviting the best sculptures in Chi to come and take a look.

“I was going to box with him myself,” says Howard, “but not after I seen them shoulder muscles. I figured I didn’t have enough insurance to justify me putting on the gloves with this bird. So I made Joe Rivers take him.”

Well, they could see in a minute that the rube was a born boxer. He was fast as a streak and in one lesson he learnt more than most boys picks up in a month. They just showed him how to stand and the rest seemed to come natural. In a little w’ile Joe, with all his experience, was having trouble to land, whereas Burkey was hitting Joe as often as he felt like. Only he didn’t put no zip in his punches. He pulled them all.

“Cut loose once!” says Howard. “Let’s see if you can knock him down!”

“Oh, no,” said Burkey. “This ain’t in earnest.”

Rivers looked just as well satisfied, but Howard says:

“You got to be in earnest, even when you’re just working out. They’s lots of boys as strong as you that don’t know how to get their stren’th into their punch. That’s a thing that’s got to be learnt, and I can’t learn you if I can’t see you wallop.”

“No,” says Burke. “I ain’t going to hurt nobody for nothing.”

And all Howard’s coaxing done no good. He wouldn’t cut loose.

But at the end of the six weeks he stuck round Howard’s he was one of the sweetest boxers you ever seen and Howard thought so well of him that he tried to sign him up.

“Let me handle you, Burkey,” he says. “I’ll get you on in Milwaukee and I’ll take you down east and make you some money. If you’re handled right, they’s no reason why you shouldn’t be welterweight champion some day.”

“I don’t want to be welterweight champion,” said Burke. “I just want to be champion of Charley Porter. And when I’ve beat him, I’m through.”

“All right,” says Howard. “You know what you want. But let me tell you one thing⁠—you won’t beat Porter or no one else if you just pet them. You’ve got to hit!”

The kid smiled.

“I’ll hit when it’s time,” he says.

So that was the last Howard heard of him till pretty near a month later, when he picked up a paper and read where Young Burke, a farmer boy living outside of Benton Harbor, had stopped Charley Porter, an aspirant for the welterweight title, in one round.

III

About a month more went by before Burke showed up in Chi again and called on Nate. As soon as he mentioned his name and where he was from, Nate was interested. Because Howard had told him about his experience with the kid. But Burkey wasn’t made up no more like Howard had described him. He was wearing the best suit of clothes twenty dollars could buy.

“I went to see Howard,” he says, “but he’s out of town. So I come to you. I want to go in the fight game.”

“I understood from Howard,” says Nate, “that you was going to quit after that one bout.”

“I thought I was,” says Burkey. “But it’s different now. You see, I and my old man has busted up. So I got to make a living.”

“What was the bust-up over?” ast Nate. “Didn’t he like you boxing?”

“He didn’t care nothing about that,” says the kid. “But they was a gal he wanted I should marry. And I give her the air. So he done the same to me.”

“Why did you quit the gal?” ast Nate.

“I figured I could do better,” he says. “She’s just a gal round home there, and why should I marry her? I can pretty near pick who I want to marry.”

“Everybody can pick who they want to marry,” said Nate.

“Yes, but who I pick, I can pretty near have,” says the kid. “I thought I was stuck on this gal, but I found I wasn’t. I hadn’t seen hardly any other gals, and she was always round. So I thought she was about the only gal in the world. I know better now. But I did like her and my old man liked her and kept after me to ask her. So I ast her and she told me she was stuck on somebody else. So I ast her who was it and she said Charley Porter. She didn’t know him, but she’d seen him on the street a lot of times, and he’d smiled at her. She thought he was handsome and made a hero out of him. He was the best fighter in the world, to her mind. So I said I could beat him and she laughed at me. She says, ‘You might beat him plowing.’ So I said, ‘I can beat him boxing.’ So she says, ‘All right. You do it and I’ll like you better than him.’ So I come up here and took a few lessons and knocked him cockeyed.

“When she seen me afterwards, she throwed her arms round my neck and said I was the best man in the world, and we got engaged. But during the time I was up here in Chi learning to box, I learnt to dance too. And I bought me these good clothes. So after I trimmed Porter I got to going over to St. Joe, to the pavilion, nights, and I seen all the gals was nuts over me. So I said to myself, ‘What’s the idear of tying up to this rube gal when you can marry somebody that is somebody⁠—maybe one of these rich Chicago society dames.’ So I give this hick the air and my old man throwed me out of the house.”

Well, Nate’s handled a lot of boxers and never seen one yet that despised himself, but after he’d listened to this bird a w’ile, he begin to think that all the rest of them was lilies of the valley.

“Which Chicago society gal have you picked out?” he says, to lead him on.

“I don’t know yet,” says Burkey. “Some of them at the dances in St. Joe looked good, but I want to see them all before I tie myself up.”

If you ever been to St. Joe, you know the Chicago society gals that attends them dances. If you want to see one of them in the middle of the week, go up to the Draperies and ask for Min.

“You got the right dope,” Nate says. “You’d be a sucker to make a choice till you’d looked over the whole field. And in the meanw’ile, I’ll try and get you fixed up with a couple of matches so as you can grab some spending money.”

But Burke was still thinking of the dames.

“I read a great story the other day,” he says. “It was a young fella that was a boxer and one night he was walking along the street and he heard a gal scream. She was up on the porch of a big house and they was a dude there, trying to make love to her. So she didn’t like him and that’s why she screamed. So this young fella went in and grabbed the dude and knocked him for a long trip. So the gal got stuck on this young fella, the boxer, and married him and she turned out to be a millionaire.”

“A great story!” said Nate. “I certainly wished I could of read it. But suppose he’d married her and then found out that her old man made automobiles and owed everybody. A young fella can’t be too careful who he lets marry him. And if I was you I’d go slow. In the first place, most of the gals with the real class and the big money lives in New York. So why not wait till you’ve win a couple of bouts in Milwaukee or somewheres so’s I can get you dated up in the Big Town? Then you can walk up and down Eighth Avenue and help yourself to the cream.”

This was to stall him along so’s he’d forget the skirts for a w’ile and tend to business.

Nate made him work out every day and box with some of the boys. But he was just as shy of a punch as when Howard had him.

“Cut loose and slug!” Nate told him.

“What for?” he says.

“To show me if you’ve got a haymaker,” says Nate.

“Ask Porter if I have,” said the kid.

Finally Nate got him matched with Red Harris in a semi-windup at Milwaukee. Harris can wallop, but he’s slow. Well, Burkey made him look like he was handcuffed. Red never laid a glove on him the whole bout, w’ile Nate’s boy played him like a piano. But it was soft music and when it was over neither of them had a mark. The crowd liked Burke at first on account of his speed. But they razzed him the last few rounds because it looked like he wasn’t trying. The papers couldn’t do nothing but give him the best of it, but said he wouldn’t never get nowheres till he learned to punch. Nate had begged him all through to tear in and end it, but he might as well of tried to argue with Central.

Well, Fitzsimmons was putting on a show over to Benton Harbor and he wired Nate and ast him if he’d bring Burke there for a windup with a Grand Rapids boy named Hap Stein. This kid had met some of the best boys round Michigan and beat them all, and, of course, Burke’d draw good in his hometown, especially after what he done to Porter.

So Nate took Burkey over there and Fitz ast Nate how the kid was coming and Nate told him:

“One of the sweetest boxers I ever seen, but he ain’t showed enough of a wallop to annoy a soap bubble.”

“It’s a funny thing,” said Fitz, “because he hit Porter just once and broke his jaw. And Charley’s jaw ain’t glass, neither. I know a punch when I see one and I doubt if Dempsey could hit harder than this bird plugged this baby.”

“Well,” says Nate, “I wished we had the prescription. He made a monkey out of Harris at Milwaukee, but he wouldn’t even slap him hard. And the boys he works out with, I’ve had them rough him so’s he’d get mad, but it didn’t do no good.”

“I don’t suppose so,” says Fitz, “because he wasn’t sore at Porter. Charley didn’t even know him.”

“But he had a reason to show Porter up,” said Nate, and he told Fitz about the rube gal.

“That’s news to me,” said Fitz. “Maybe he’ll only fight when they’s a dame for a prize. Why don’t you hire some chorus doll to vamp him and have her tell him she’s his as soon as he’s knocked all the other welters for a corpse?”

“You don’t know this bird!” said Nate. “Chorus gals would be beneath his notice. He wants a millionaire society belle and I’d have a fat chance of getting one of them to play the part.”

Well, the bout with Stein was a farce. Burkey was so fast that Hap thought they’d ganged on him, but nothing Nate could say or do had any effect. He couldn’t make the kid cut loose and punch.

IV

When they’d been back in Chi a couple of months and Burke had had one more fight in Milwaukee⁠—he made a monkey out of Jimmy Mason⁠—well, he begin fretting and wanted to know how soon Nate was going to take him east.

“As soon as I can get you matched,” said Nate. “But if I do date you up down there, you’ll have to cut out the cuddling and really fight or they won’t want you a second time.”

“Maybe I’ll be different down there,” said Burkey.

So along late in the fall Nate got him matched with Battling Igoe, in Boston.

“Now here’s your chance,” Nate told him. “I got Rickard’s promise that if you trim Igoe he’ll put you on in New York with Willie Kemp. And the man that beats Willie Kemp will get a whack at Britton and the big money.”

All Burke said was:

“How’s Boston for gals? Any class to them?”

“Not enough for you,” says Nate. “You’d be throwing yourself away! They’s no doubt but that you could go down to Scollay Square or Revere Beach and take your pick, but you’d be a sucker to do it. New York’s the place. And suppose you get tied up to some Boston countess and then went to New York and win a couple of big bouts and got invited round to some of them big mansions on Mott Street or the Tenderloin, and next thing you know, you’d probably meet a dozen gals that never even heard of Boston. Then you’d wished you’d of been more careful and not financed yourself to no bean shooter.”

You read about the Igoe bout? I seen it. When they was all in the ring beforehand, Nate said to Igoe, he says: “Well, Bat, we’ve decided to let you stay three rounds. That’ll be enough to give you a boxing lesson. But in the fourth round, you’re going to hear music that’ll rock you to sleep.” Nate had heard that the Battler wasn’t no lion heart and this kind of gab fretted him.

“I’ll rock him to sleep himself,” he said, but his teeth was shimmying.

Burke was just the same like in his other bouts. He wrote his name and address all over Igoe’s pan, and convinced the Battler that any time he wanted to he could knock him for a row of stumps. That went on for three rounds, with Nate, as usual, begging the kid to put over a haymaker, and Burke paying no attention. So when the bell rung for the fourth, Nate hollered, “Good night, Bat!” and Igoe thought sure he meant business. And he wasn’t named after Nelson. So the first time Burke hit him in this round he folded up like a bass singer’s chin and flopped on the floor, yelling foul. Well, we all seen the blow; it landed just under the green spot where he parks his collar button. And besides that, they wasn’t no force to it. But Igoe was through for the evening, and the kid had win another soft one. Personally I’d of rather took fifty socks on the jaw than the razzing the crowd give Bat.

Well, Nate was going to New York and stay a w’ile and he wanted to send Burke back to Chi to wait till they’d chose a date for the fight with Kemp. But Burkey said no; he could lay round New York as easy as Chicago and if Nate wouldn’t take him there he was through. He says:

“Here I am a coming champion, and what does it get me? I ain’t having no fun. I want to meet some gals and dance with them and kid them.”

“All right, come along,” says Nate. “But I wished you’d remember one thing: When you do meet them swell East Side janes, don’t treat them like toys. They’ve got feelings as well as riches and wealth, and I would rather see Kemp or Britton knock you lopsided than see you win fame and leave a trail of broken hearts.”

“I’m no flirt!” says Burkey. “I can’t help what they feel towards me, but I won’t lead them on, not unlest I’m serious myself.”

“Now you’re talking like a man!” says Nate.

So they come to New York and stopped at the Spencer. Nate had a lot of business to tend to, and guys to see, and he didn’t want this rube chasing round with him all the w’ile, so he turned him over to Jack Grace, the old lightweight. You know Jack, or at least you’ve heard of him. He’d kid Thomas A. Edison.

Nate had tipped off Jack about Burkey, and the second day they was in the Big Town, Jack took the boy for a walk. Every time they passed a car with a good-looking gal in it, Burke would ask, “Who’s that?” And Jack pretended like he knew them all.

“That’s Gwendolyn Weasel,” he’d say. “Her old man owns part of the Grand Central Station⁠—the Lower Level. And that one’s Mildred Whiffletree, a niece of Bud Fisher, the ukulele king. And there’s Honey Hives; she’s a granddaughter of Old Man Bumble, the bee man. They got a big country place on Ellis Island.”

“Where could a man meet these gals?” ast Burkey.

“Nowheres only at their home,” said Jack. “And they’s no chance of you getting invited round yet a w’ile. Nobody knows who you are. But wait till you’ve hung one on this Kemp guy’s chin and I bet you’ll have more invitations than a roach catcher.”

Well, Nate landed the Kemp match sooner than he expected. Rickard said he’d put Burke on with Willie for the windup, three weeks from then. And he’d guarantee the winner a match with Britton.

Nate had got what he was after, but he was worried sick.

“I know he can beat Kemp if he fights,” he says, “but I never yet been able to make him fight. And if he just babies along like he done in these other bouts, one of these New York referees is liable to say he ain’t trying, and stop the bout. Or if it does go the limit, Kemp’ll get the decision because he’ll punch harder. And Kemp’ll hit Burke too. He’s far and away the best boy my kid’s ever been against, too good to get showed up even by as fast and clever a boxer as Burkey. Our only chance is to make this little farmer slug⁠—tear in there and sock him like he did Porter. But how we’re going to do it is more than I know.”

V

Jack Grace is the one that deserves the credit. He went to work the night of Miss Morgan’s big show, when the receipts was turned over to devastated France. Nate had to buy four tickets and I and Jack and Burkey went with him.

Well, as you know, our best people was there that night.

The old Garden was full of the folks that generally goes there to the horse show, not to boxing bouts. The soup and fish was everywheres, and gals that would knock your eye out, dressed pretty near as warm as the fighters themselfs.

We couldn’t keep Burke in his seat. He was scared that he wouldn’t see all the janes, and just as scared that they wouldn’t all see him. The guys behind him was yelling murder and the ushers bawled him out a dozen times.

Then all of a sudden, his eyes jumped right out of his head and he gave a gasp and flopped down in his chair. The three of us looked where he was looking. And no wonder he’d wilted! What a gal!

She was with a middle-aged man, probably her dad, and she set in the row just ahead of us and acrost the aisle. I guess it was the first time she’d ever been to this kind of a party and she was all flushed up with excitement. But she’d of been pretty enough without that.

“There she is!” says Burke. “There’s the gal I want!”

“Who don’t!” says Nate.

“Who is she?” Burke ast, and Nate was going to tell him he didn’t know. But Jack Grace cut in.

“It’s Esther Fester,” he said. “That’s her father with her, Lester Fester. He’s the second richest man in New York. They claim he made three or four billion during the war, selling waffle irons to Belgium. And she’s his only kid. Every young millionaire in town has proposed to her, but she won’t have nothing to do with them, calls them all loafers.

“She says the man she marries will have to be a champion of something, whether it’s football or boxing or halma. She don’t care what, just so’s he’s better in one line than anybody else.”

“She’s quite a boxing fan,” says Nate. “I seen her here several times before. She maybe wants to look all the boys over and see which one she likes the best.”

“I understand she’s a great admirer of Willie Kemp,” says Jack. “She’s always here when he boxes and she probably come tonight expecting to see him in the audience. Maybe he’ll be introduced before the main bout, and if he is, we’ll watch her close and see if she’s interested.”

“Why can’t I get introduced?” ast Burke.

“You can,” said Nate. “Wait till they’re getting ready for the windup and then climb in the ring and tell Joe Humphreys who you are.”

Well, he couldn’t hardly wait till the preliminaries was over so’s he could get up there and have her see him. And when he bowed, it was right at her.

“Young Burke, the Michigan Flash!” says Humphreys. “He is matched to box Willie Kemp in this ring two weeks from Friday night. The winner will meet Jack Britton for the welterweight title.”

Coming back to his seat, Burkey had to pass the gal. He smiled right in her face and she smiled back. I guess it was all she could do to keep from laughing.

I don’t suppose they’s been more than three or four fights better than that Leonard-Mitchell scrap. It was certainly the best I ever seen. But I don’t believe Burke knew they was fighting.

When it was over and the gang started out he would of overtook the gal and spoke to her only for Nate holding him.

“It’d make her sore and spoil everything,” said Nate.

“How could it make her sore?” said Burke. “Didn’t she smile at me?”

“Well, it’d make her old man sore,” says Nate.

“What could he do?” says Burkey. “If he looked cross-eyed at me, I’d bust him.”

“That’d be a sweet way to start a courtship!” said Jack. “Even New York gals ain’t so far ahead of the times that they fall in love with every handsome young bud that introduces himself to their father with a smash in the jaw.”

“But I just want her phone number,” says the kid.

“You can get it at the hotel,” says Jack. “The phone company got out a book three or four years ago that gives the names of a few of their rich subscribers, and what their number used to be, and if you call it up, they’ll tell you what it’s been changed to.”

So as soon as we was back at the Spencer, Burkey run for the book. And he couldn’t find no Lester Fester.

“I didn’t think it’d be in there,” says Jack. “They’s very few New York millionaires has their number in the phone book. If they did, their wifes would bother them to death, calling up.”

“But they must be some way to locate them,” said the kid. “Somebody must know where they stay. A man as rich as him must have a big mansion somewheres. And you got to find out where it’s at. If you don’t find out for me tomorrow, why I’m through! I won’t box Kemp or no one else.”

And they knew he was cuckoo enough to mean it. But Jack Grace had his plans made already.

“I’ll locate them tomorrow,” he said, “that is, unlest you hear from the gal herself.”

“But she don’t know where I’m staying,” says Burke.

“She might maybe call up Rickard and find out,” says Jack.

So the kid went to bed and Nate and Jack set up and talked it over.

“It looks like we got him,” said Jack. “If we can make him think him and Kemp is rivals, he’ll fight.”

“But that gal can’t be framed,” says Nate. “I don’t know who she is, but she ain’t the kind we could get any help from.”

“We don’t need her help,” says Jack. “He’ll get a special delivery tomorrow afternoon, with her name signed to it; that is, what he thinks is her name. I’ll dope out the letter yet tonight. If necessary he’ll get a letter every day till the day of the bout.”

“And then what?” says Nate.

“Why, nothing,” says Jack. “What do you care, if it does the work?”

“It don’t seem right,” said Nate. “I don’t want to break the kid’s heart.”

“You got as much chance of breaking his head!” says Jack. “What about the gal in Benton Harbor, that he was so stuck on and got over it in a day? But as far as that’s concerned, we don’t have to kill this gal off when we’re through with Kemp. We can keep her going till he meets Britton. We’ll have her tell him first that he’s got to trim Kemp, and if that works, we’ll send her to Europe or somewheres, leaving him a farewell note that she’s been called away, but she’ll be back in time to see him win the title.”

“He’s a sap,” said Nate, “but I doubt if he’s dumbbell enough to swallow this.”

“You don’t appreciate him,” said Jack. “Where him and the fair sex is concerned, they’s nothing so raw that he won’t eat it up. But suppose he don’t? You ain’t got nothing to lose.”

“Just him, that’s all,” says Nate.

“Well, he’s no loss if he won’t fight,” said Jack. “And this may be the way to make him.”

VI

Burke had started training at Daley’s. When he got back from there the next afternoon, they was a special delivery waiting for him. It said:

Dear Mr. Burke: You will probably be surprised getting a letter from one who you have never met, but still I suppose you get many letters from silly girls of my sex that has seen you and admires you. Hope you won’t think bad of me for writing to you, but am a girl that acts on their impulse and sometimes am sorry afterwards that I done so and wished I was not so silly, but you know how girls are and especially in regards to affairs of the heart.

Well, Mr. Burke, you don’t know me, but I was to the Garden last night with my daddy and set right near you and noticed you when I first come in, but didn’t dast look at you and didn’t know who you was till you was introduced from the ring. And then when you was returning to your seat I thought you smiled at me and I smiled back. Oh, Mr. Burke, was it me you was smiling at? If not I will feel very foolish for smiling at you and hope you won’t think the worse of me for doing so.

Well, anyway, it’s too late to mend and this a.m. I had my secretary get where you are staying from Mr. Rickard and am writing you this letter and suppose you will say it’s just another fool girl writing mash notes, but I flatter myself that I am a little higher class than most girls as I am a society girl and don’t write these kind of letters as a rule. So please don’t think I am a fool and tear this up. Am just a girl that sometimes lets their feelings run away with them.

Am going to make pa take me to see the bout between you and Willie Kemp, but am afraid you are going to be beaten that night, Mr. Burke, as have seen Mr. Kemp fight and believe he is going to be the champion. I admire him very much and up to last night, admired him more than any other man, but now am not so sure. There I am afraid I have been too bold and you will think I am a perfect fool.

Well, Mr. Burke, will not take up no more of your time though I don’t suppose you have read this far, but hope you don’t think I am a fool, but know you do. Pa don’t approve of me writing to men to who I am not engaged and would be very angry was he to find out I had wrote to you, so can’t let you answer this letter or call me up for fear he would find it out and be very angry. But maybe will write you again and certainly will see you fight Mr. Kemp and if you see me that night, please smile at me again so will not think you consider me a fool. But maybe you will not feel like smiling after you have boxed Mr. Kemp, as I think he is a wonder.

Well, Mr. Burke, goodbye for this time and please don’t think I am a fool.

Well, Jack Grace had guessed right. Burkey swallowed it whole. He begin reading it down in the lobby, but when he looked back and seen the name signed to it, he took it up to the room to finish it. And if he read it once, he read it twenty times⁠—and looked sillier every time he read it. He surprised us one way, though. We was expecting he would show it to everybody. But he kept it to himself. Of course, we’d read it before it got to him. Jack had wrote it and had one of the phone gals copy it off.

Nate ast the kid at supper how he felt.

“Great!” he says.

“You want to keep working to improve your wind,” says Nate. “This is your first fifteen-round bout and you may get tired.”

“I won’t have time to get tired,” he says. “I’ll knock him dead in a round!”

It was the first time he’d ever made a speech like that.

“Looks like you was right,” says Nate to Jack, afterwards. “He’s eat it up. The only thing now is to be sure and not overplay it. Just give him a couple more short notes between now and the bout.”

“What shall I say in them?” says Jack.

“You don’t need my advice,” said Nate. “I think you wrote that one from memory. You must of got a few mash notes yourself.”

“No,” says Jack. “All the time I was boxing, I only got letters from one gal. And she always said the same thing: ‘If you’re a man, you’ll pay me back that eight dollars and sixty cents you stole.’ ”

Well, Burke pestered the clerks to death asking if they was sure no mail had came for him; and he went for the phone every time it rung, and was scared to go out for fear a call would come w’ile he wasn’t there. Finally it got so that Nate couldn’t hardly drag him to Daley’s for his workout, and they seen they’d have to spill another note or he’d worry himself out of shape. The second one was short and said:

Dear Mr. Burke: It has been all as I could do to keep from writing you before this, but was afraid if I wrote too often you would think I was a fool.

Well, Mr. Burke, it’s only five days now till your bout with Mr. Kemp and suppose you are excited. I know I am and can’t hardly wait for the big event, though to be perfectly honest am in a funny position as I don’t know if I want you or he to win. You see I am an admirer of the both of you. Suppose you will say to yourself I must be a funny girl to not know her own mind, but you see I have admired Mr. Kemp a long time and only seen you the other night for the first time, so don’t know which I like best. Guess I will let you two decide the question for me and may the best man win.

Pa is going to take me to the fight and only hope I will not faint or something with excitement. Suppose you will think me a fool for feeling this way in regards to two parties who I have never met, but as I told you before, am a girl that always lets their feelings get the best of them, though sometimes am sorry when it is too late. Hope you won’t make me sorry, Mr. Burke. That is, if you win. Am afraid for your sake, however, that you are doomed with defeat, as Mr. Kemp has a punch and you are just a boxer that can’t hit hard.

Well, Mr. Burke, must say ta ta for this time as am going to a toddle party at the Ritz.

And the morning of the big day he got this one:

Dear Mr. Burke: Just a line to let you know am thinking of you and if you beat Mr. Kemp, will call you up and see if we can’t meet somewheres and have a dance, or maybe you don’t care for la dance, but we can have a little chat if you don’t think me too much a fool.

Well, Mr. Burke, I won’t bother you when you must be already worried and nervous over the bout and will just say that I will be at the Garden and will see you even if you don’t see me and wished I could tell you where I will set but don’t know.

Well, Mr. Burke, good luck and may the best man win.

On the way down from the hotel that night, Burkey ast Jack and I if we’d bet on him. We told him no. So he says:

“If you want to make some easy money, bet some of these wise crackers that I’ll stop this bird in a round. I’ll slap him dead!”

VII

So I and Jack did get down a couple of bets, fifty apiece. We bet the kid would win by a knock out and we got three to one. The smart guys had looked over his record and didn’t see how he could stop Kemp.

But when they got in the ring, I wished for a minute I hadn’t bet. Instead of paying any attention to what was coming off, Burkey was looking all over the house trying to locate the little peach. I was scared he’d still be doing it yet when the bout started, and Kemp’d sock him before he got down to business. But Jack Grace seen the danger, and leaned over and w’ispered to the kid:

“You remember that Fester gal? She’s up in a box with her old man.”

“Where at?” ast Burke, all excited.

“It’s pretty dark,” says Jack, “but I’ll try and point her out between rounds.”

As you know, they wasn’t no “between rounds.” In the first two minutes Kemp made five trips to the floor, and he liked it so well the last time that he decided to sleep there.

And in the excitement, Jack pretended he’d lost sight of the gal.

VIII

Burkey stayed in the room all the next day, waiting for the phone call. The papers had went nuts over him and said he was the Benny Leonard of the welters, and that it was just a question of the date when the title would change hands. But for all the effect it had on Burke, they might as well of said he’d opened a bird store.

Meanw’ile, Nate and Jack Grace talked it over and decided to go through with Jack’s scheme⁠—keep Esther alive till the Britton bout, but send her to Europe, where she wouldn’t be so much trouble. So late in the evening, w’ile Burkey was still waiting for his call, a special delivery come for him that said:

Dear Mr. Burke: Have bad news or at least hope you will agree with me and think it is bad. By the time you receive this note, will be on the old pond with pa, bound for Europe. He got a cable this a.m. calling him to the other side and insisted on me going along. So we hustled round and got rooms on the ship that sails this p.m. I cried when he said I would have to go and hope you feel as bad as I do. But it’s only for a short time and will be back in time to see you beat Britton and win the title. After that⁠—well, Mr. Burke, I won’t say no more.

You was wonderful last night and am proud of you. Wished I could tell you in person how much I admire you, but will do that later on. Will drop you a note just the minute we get back. In the meantime, don’t forget one who is proud of you and wished I could meet my coming champion.

Well, it was a blow to the kid, but it would of worked out all right only for the toughest kind of a break. Nate had to hurry back to Chi, but before he left he seen Rickard and closed for the Britton bout. Burke’s end was to be $10,000.

So the second day after the Kemp bout, they was taking the Century home, and I and Jack Grace was over to see them off. They’d just shook hands and was starting through the gate when Burke seen her, the gal he’d went wild over at Miss Morgan’s show! She was saying goodbye to another pip.

“Wait!” says Burkey, and before Nate could stop him, he’d grabbed the gal by the arm.

“Esther!” he says. “Miss Fester! You didn’t go after all!”

The poor gal was speechless.

“Don’t you know me?” said the kid. “I’m Burke, the boy that beat Kemp, the boy you been writing to.”

She jerked her arm loose and found her tongue.

“I’m not interested in who you are,” she said. “I don’t know you and I don’t believe I want to.”

By this time, Nate had him.

“Come on, boy,” he says. “You’ve made a mistake.”

And he dragged him through the gate, w’ile the crowd stared goggle-eyed.

“Well,” says our gal to her chum, “you’re going to have a thrill⁠—a trip with a crazy man!”

Burke was numb, Nate tells me, till the train was way out of New York. Then he said:

“Maybe she didn’t recognize me. Or maybe she just didn’t want her friend to know.”

“That was probably it,” says Nate.

“But why did she lie to me and say she was going to Europe?” says the kid.

After a w’ile he got up from his seat.

“Her friend’s on this train,” he said. “I’m going to find her and ask her something.”

Nate tried to coax him out of it, but he wouldn’t listen. So Nate went with him to see that he didn’t get in no trouble.

They found the gal’s pal a couple of cars back. The kid stopped and said:

“I beg your pardon, lady, but I want to ask you just one question. That gal that seen you off, is her name Esther Fester?”

The jane laughed and says:

“I’m afraid it’s nothing as poetical as that. Her name is plain Mary Holt.”

Without another word, Burke followed Nate back to their own sleeper. He didn’t open his clam again till they hit Albany. Then he made some remark about wanting some fresh air, and got off the train.

That’s the last Nate seen of him till the other day, when he showed up in Chi, after money.

So you see why the Britton show had to be postponed. They’s no plot for it.