HOSPITAL STUFF
Every time I see a thermometer, a watch, and a egg my temperature
aviates to about a hundred and ninety-eight in the shade--and if they's
nobody lookin' I bust 'em! I spent two months and eight hundred bucks
with that layout once and, oh, lady!--Say! The next time I feel a
vacation comin' on, I'm goin' to Russia and holler, "Hooray for the
Czar!"
I just been Red-Crossed to within a inch of my life and I'm off that
"take-two-once-every-twice, and don't-eat-any-this-or-drink-any-that"
stuff! The right cross and the double cross has been little pals of
mine for years, and I once got throwed out of school for pullin' that
"How to make a maltese cross" thing, but the _red_ one was all new to
me up to last month.
They call me a glutton for punishment, but I got--enough!
I can't go in a drug store no more, because the sight of the
prescription bar in the rear affects me like strong drink and I even
had to lay off peas, because they look like pills.
All the food I got durin' the time I become a victim of the Red Cross
could have been carried over the Rocky Mountains by a lame ant, and I
got a hole in my wrist that can be used as a ash tray from doctors
grabbin' it to give my pulse early mornin' workouts and clockin' it
over the full course. I was allowed two kinds of milk to drink--hot
and cold. The only thing I could get to read was wrote to order on the
premises and was all on the same subject, "Shake well before using!"
The whole thing was brought on by two words and Genaro, which was
puttin' on this five-reel barbecue called "How Kid Scanlan Won the
Title," and take it from me, if the Kid had pulled off in Manhattan
some of the stunts he did in that picture, he would have won more than
the welterweight title--he'd have won the oil business from Rockefeller
the first night!
The two words was "Don't jump!" and Genaro _didn't_ say 'em--if he had,
the Kid would never have dove off a cliff and sprained his
million-dollar left arm, which triflin' detail caused _me_ to get my
mail at a hospital for two months.
It was in the third reel of this picture, which I see by the billboards
is liable to thrill the nation, that the thing happened. The Kid is
supposed to jump off a cliff to fool the plotters which is tryin' to
stop him from winnin' the title. They had picked out two of them
cliffs--one of 'em was a drop of three feet and the other was a drop of
twenty-one miles, accordin' to Scanlan, who made it and ought to know.
Anyhow, it was far enough! They was gonna show a close-up of the high
one first and then take a flash of Scanlan leapin' from the little one.
The Kid walks to the edge of that high one, looks down and some
fat-head camera man points a machine at him and starts turnin' the
crank. Genaro was to wave his handkerchief as a signal for the Kid to
dive off the _little_ cliff and Scanlan, kinda puzzled, watches him.
Just as he's walkin' away from the edge, Genaro blows his nose! The
Kid sees the camera man and the handkerchief, and not wantin' to act
yellah before the bunch, he--jumps!
A lot of excitement was had by all and Scanlan sprained his arm.
"Ah!" yells Genaro. "She'sa make the greata scene! What you think
thisa Meester Scanlan he'sa joomp off wan mountain for art? That'sa
real arteeste! He'sa killa himself for maka picture for Genaro! Ah--I
embrace heem!"
Miss Vincent begins by faintin'. Then she comes to, throws a rock at a
camera man which is takin' a close up of her unconscious, kneels at the
Kid's side and kisses him right out loud before everybody. She claims,
if he proves to be dead, she'll leave the company flat and have Genaro
tried for murder before a judge which had been tryin' for two years to
do somethin' for her. They finally carried the Kid up to the hotel,
and sent for a doctor which was recommended by Eddie Duke. Accordin'
to Eddie, this friend of his had the average doctor lookin' like a drug
clerk. Pluckin' people from the grave was his specialty, says Eddie.
I guess they had to wait till this graverobber graduated from college,
because it was over a hour before he showed up. He gets out of a buggy
that was all the rage about the time Washington was thinkin' of goin'
in the army, and the animal that was draggin' it along had been a total
failure at tryin' to be a horse. The doc wasn't a day over
seventy-five and he was dressed in a hat that must have come with the
buggy, a pair of shoes like grandpa used to wear to work and a set of
white whiskers. If he had any clothes on, I didn't see 'em. All I
seen was them whiskers! I figured, if he had plucked people from the
grave, like Eddie Duke claimed, he must have did it after they was dead.
He didn't look very encouragin' to me, but I led him upstairs and into
the room where Scanlan was just comin' to and askin' what round it was.
Eddie Duke and Miss Vincent was at his bedside, and the rest of the
gang was outside the door arguyin' over which was the best undertaker
in Frisco. I slipped away to a telephone booth and called up
information.
"Gimme the best doctor in California!" I says, flickin' a jitney in the
slot.
"For a nickel?" giggles the dame on the other end.
"Stop it!" I says. "I got a man here that's liable to croak any
minute--this ain't no time for comedy! Ah--what time do you get off?"
"I never go out with strangers," she says, "but you got a nice voice at
that. Where is your friend doin' his sufferin' at?"
"Film City!" I tells her. "And my voice ain't got nothin' on yours. I
don't want to give you no short answer, but can I get the doctor now?"
"I got him waitin'," she says. "If I was you, I wouldn't let 'em fill
your friend full of dope; fresh air and sunshine's got the druggist
beat eighty ways! Good-by, Cutey--gimme a ring after the funeral!"
"This is the Hillcrest Sanitarium," pipes another voice over the wire,
very sedate and dignified.
"And this is Johnny Green," I comes back, "manager of Kid Scanlan, the
welterweight champ. We've throwed you people a lot of trade. Only a
short while ago Scanlan flattened Young Hogan in two rounds, and Hogan
was took there from the ring, remember? Well, I want the boss doctor
there sent to Film City right away!"
With that begins a argument that went about fifteen minutes, and which
I finally win by a shade. It seems it wasn't the regular thing for the
head doctor there to answer night bells and so forth, like a ordinary
medico, and the goin' was rather tough for awhile. Three or four
times, when I was ready to quit, this telephone dame, which was takin'
it all in with both ears, cut in with advice and helpful hints till the
guy on the other end had enough and says he'll come.
The first thing that met my eye, when I got back to the Kid, was Eddie
Duke's friend, the greatest doctor in the world. He was walkin' very
fast away from the hotel and mutterin' to himself. I just had time to
grab his arm, as he jumps in the buggy and reaches for the whip.
"Will he live, doc?" I asks him.
"Bah!" he snorts, jerkin' away from me. "The ignorant little pup!"
He whales Old Dobbin with the whip and leaves me flat.
I couldn't figure out what the Kid's education had to do with his
health, so I beats it upstairs and all but fell over Eddie Duke. He's
holdin' one eye and mumblin' somethin' about "roughnecks" and
"ingratitude." I kept on through the crowd and into the Kid's room.
Scanlan is still on the bed groanin', and beside him is the hotel
clerk, thumbin' a almanac.
"Wait!" pants the clerk, as I come in. "I'll have it in a second." He
turns over a lot more pages and then he hollers, "Ah! Here we
are--what did I tell you? 'First Aid to the Injured.'" He clears his
throat and the Kid looks up hopefully. "Number one," reads the clerk.
"_'First send for a physician!'_" He drops the book and dashes for the
door. "Don't do nothing till I get back!" he yells.
Scanlan starts to go after him, but moans and falls back on the bed.
"I wish I had a gun!" he snarls. "That big boob has been here fifteen
minutes tellin' me all he was gonna do for me as soon as he found it in
the book! He--"
"Didn't the doctor do no good?" I butts in, sittin' on the side of the
bed.
"Doctor?" says the Kid. "What doctor?"
"Eddie Duke's friend," I tells him. "The old--"
Scanlan leans up on his good arm.
"Listen, Johnny!" he says. "I still got a wallop in my right! Don't
kid me now or--"
"What d'ye mean kid you?" I asks him. "Didn't the doctor--"
"Doctor!" he interrupts me, slammin' down the pillow. "If that guy was
a doctor, I'm Caruso! He comes in here where I'm practically dyin' and
tries to sell me a book!"
"Gimme it all!" I gasps.
"He sits down at the bed," explains the Kid, "and takes a big, black
book out of what I figured was his medicine chest. He holds it up and
asks me if I see it and I says I did, thinkin' I had passed the first
test easy. Then he says he wrote the book himself and it's full of
hope and cheer or dope and beer--to tell you the truth, I don't know
which it was on account of the pain. Anyhow, I let him get away with
it, and he tells me to think of how lucky I actually am alongside of
the Crown's Prince of Germany--and then he begins to read from that
book! It seems it's a novel about faith bein' stronger than pain. By
this time, I seen that he was either nutty or tryin' to kid me, so I
cut him off by askin' him when he's gonna fix up my arm. He says he's
doin' it now, and when he gets through, he'll leave the book which will
be a total of twenty-five bucks. When I come to, I ask him how long he
had been a doctor, and he gets sore and claims he's a healer of the
Mystic Sliders or somethin' like that, and what do I mean by callin'
him a doctor? Then I called him a few other things so's he wouldn't
have no kick comin' and gave him the bum's rush out of the room. Eddie
Duke starts to moan about me maulin' his friend, and--well, get him to
show you his eye!"
The door opens suddenly and Miss Vincent sticks the curls which all the
shop girls is copyin' around the side of it.
"It's the doctor!" she whispers.
"Say!" pipes the Kid, grabbin' a pillow. "That old guy is game, eh?"
"A fightin' fool!" I agrees.
But this time a tall, solemn-lookin' guy breezes into the room and
stares at me and the Kid with the same warm friendliness that a
motorcycle cop regards a boob tryin' out a new auto. I figured he was
the bird I had ordered by 'phone, and hit 1000 on the guess. He leans
over the Kid, prods him around a bit, and then goes over him like he
had lost somethin' and thought maybe he'd find it there. Then he
straightens up and grunts.
"Hmph!" he says. "This man is a nervous wreck! Completely run
down--needs rest and diet. I have my car outside and can take him over
to the sanitarium, if--are you a relative?"
"His manager," I explains. "How about the arm, doc?"
"Nothing!" he says. "Wrenched--that's all. Come--help him downstairs,
I'll wait."
I took out a five-case note.
"What do we owe you, doc?" I asks him, hopin' for the best.
"My consultation fee is fifty dollars!" he says, without battin' an eye.
I staggered back against the bureau.
"Every time you see me it's gonna set me back fifty?" asks the Kid,
with tears in his voice.
The doc gives him a cold nod.
"Couldn't I take some treatment by mail?" pipes Scanlan, hopefully.
"Cease!" I says, takin' out the old checkbook. "What's your name, doc?"
"James," he says, "J. T. James."
"What's the J stand for?" I asks, shakin' out the pen.
"Jesse!" butts in Scanlan. "Heh, doc?"
"Do you mean to insinuate that I'm robbing you?" says the doc, frownin'
at him.
"No," says the Kid, takin' the check from me and handin' it to him, "I
don't blame a guy for tryin', but--"
I shut him off and dragged him downstairs before they was any hard
feelin's. We climbed in the doctor's bus and at the Kid's request,
Miss Vincent come along with us. Then we went after the road record
between Film City and the Hillcrest Sanitarium. I guess this doctor
was born with a steerin' wheel in his hand, because we took some
corners on that trip that would have worried a snake, and when he threw
her in high, we breezed along so swift we could have made a bullet
quit. Finally, we come to a great big buildin' all hedged off with an
iron fence and if you've ever seen a souvenir post card with "Havin' a
fine time. Wish you were here," on it, you know what it looked like.
The doctor tells me and Miss Vincent to wait in the office, and he goes
out with the Kid. In about fifteen minutes he's back and calls me over
to a desk. They's a long piece of paper there and he says to sit down
and fill it out, but, after one flash at it, I asked him could I take
it home to work over, because my fountain pen was better on sprints
than long distance writin' and this looked like a good two-hour job.
He gives me another one of them North Pole stares and remarks that if
the thing ain't filled out at once, the Kid won't be admitted to the
sanitarium.
"He's in now, ain't he?" I comes back.
"Yes!" he snaps. "And he'll be out, if that paper isn't drawn up
instantly!"
Miss Vincent giggles and hisses in my ear.
"They say the child is in London!" she pipes. "Sign that paper, curse
you! We are in his power!"
Well, I seen I had to do a piece of writing so I grabbed up that paper
and let the fountain pen go crazy. I give the Kid's entire name, where
he was born, what his people did to fool the almshouse, what was his
mother's maiden name and why, whether he went to church or Billy
Sunday, was he white and could he prove it, who started the war and a
lot of bunk like that. The guy who doped out the entrance examinations
for that hospital must have been figurin' on how many he could keep
_out_. When I run out of ink, I took out a copy of the _Sportin'
Annual_, tore off the Kid's record and pasted it at the bottom of the
page.
"How's that?" I asks, passin' it over.
"Very well," he says, glancin' at it. "Mister Scanlan is in room 45.
That will be one-fifty--a hundred and fifty!"
"The price," I says, gettin' dizzy. "Not your weight!"
"That's the price," he tells me. "A hundred and fifty a week."
"I'm afraid the old bankroll is _too_ weak," I says,--"too weak for
that, anyhow. Drag the Kid out of that bridal suite and let him sleep
in the hall. I'll--"
"Why, the idea!" butts in Miss Vincent. "You let him stay where he is,
doctor. The money will be paid."
Before I could say anything, the door opens and in comes the dame that
poses for all the magazine covers, dressed like a nurse. I never was
much on describin'--I probably wouldn't have got ten people to watch
the battle of Gettysburg if I'd have been the press agent--but this was
the kind of dame that all the wealthy patients fall in love with in the
movies--yeh, and out of 'em! The little white cap on top of her head
looked like a dash of whipped cream on a peach sundae, and if you
wouldn't have blowed up the city hall for the smile she sent around the
room, I feel sorry for you. She crosses over and, in passin' me, she
begs my pardon and threw that smile into high.
A hundred and fifty a week, eh? Well--I dives in my inside pocket.
"May I have your check, Mister--eh--ah--" pipes the doc.
"Green," I helps him out, "Johnny Green. Can you have a _check_? You
said it!" I sits down and writes one out.
"Why this is for three hundred dollars!" he busts out, lookin' at it.
"Even so, brother," I grins, stealin' a slant at the Venus de
California. "That's for me and the Kid. Gimme a room next to his
and--"
"Do you think this is a hotel?" he frowns at me.
"I should care!" I tells him. "Let me in--that's all _I_ want!"
With that the nurse remarks that the Kid is ready to see us, so me and
Miss Vincent folleys her down the hall and she opens a door and calls
in,
"Visitors, Mister Scanlan!"
"Yeh?" pipes the Kid in a show-em-the exit voice. "Ah--can I have a
drink of--ah--water?"
"Certainly," she says. "I'll bring it now."
"Don't rush it!" says the Kid. "It might curdle! Wait till the
attendance falls off a bit!"
She laughs--and Miss Vincent didn't.
"Oho!" whispers the pet of the movies. "Like that, eh?"
We go in the room, and there's Scanlan layin' in the whitest bed I even
seen in my life and lookin' about as miserable as a millionaire's
nephew on the day his uncle dies. There's about three hundred pillows
under his head and neck, his arm is all bandaged up and beside the bed
is a table with a set of flowers on it.
And then there was that nurse!
"Pretty soft!" I says.
The Kid grins and then twists around to Miss Vincent and groans.
"Does it hurt much, you poor dear?" she says.
"I wonder how I stand it!" pipes the Kid, keepin' his face from me.
"Can I get you anything?" she asks him after a minute.
"Well," answers the Kid, "if I did want something we could send Johnny
for it." He looks at me meanin'ly. "Go out and git the right time!"
he tells me. "And while you're at it--take lots of it!"
I went outside and closed the door. I remembered bein' in a hospital
once, where they was examinin' guys for nerves, and one of the tests
was hittin' 'em in the knee with a book and watchin' if their legs flew
out. I don't remember the name of the book, but I figured on takin' a
chance. I breezed out to the desk in the hall and filled out one of
them entry blanks about myself, and then I dug up the doctor.
"Doc," I says, "I wish you'd gimme the East and West, there's somethin'
the matter with my nerve. I know you can fix me up, if anybody can,
because you got so much yourself."
"Just what is the East and West?" he asks me.
"Why, look me over!" I explains. "I wanna see what I need or should
get rid of."
He leads me in a little room to one side, and goes over me like a
lawyer lookin' for a clause in a contract he can bust. He looks at my
tongue till it begin to quiver from exposure to the air; he clocks my
pulse at a mile, two miles and over the jumps; he stuck a telephone
like you see in the foreign movies over my heart and listened in on the
internal gossip for twenty minutes; he walloped me on the chest with
the best he had and made me sing a song called
"Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah!" Then he shakes his head and tells me to put
on my coat.
"You're one of the healthiest specimens I ever examined!" he says.
"There's absolutely nothing the matter with you."
"Well, that's certainly tough, doc," I tells him, "because I sure want
to win one of them rooms like Scanlan has. I--wait a minute!" I
hollers, gettin' a flash. "You didn't gimme the book test!"
I hops over to the desk and grabs up a book off it. It was a big thick
one called "Paralysis to Pneumonia," and was written by a couple of
Greeks named "Symptoms and Therapeutics." I never heard of the thing
before, and I wished it had been "Uncle Tom's Cabin" or somethin' like
that, but I took a chance.
"Here!" I says. "I don't know if this is the right one or not, but
let's try it out on my knee, eh?"
I seen he didn't make me, so I explains about the nerve test I seen
where some of the guys throwed out their legs when hit, and some of 'em
didn't. He gimme the laugh then, and tells me to look out of the
window. I did and they's a terrible crash in back of me, but I kept
lookin' out like he told me. Then he says all right, I can turn
around, and, when I did, I see the book case has fell over on the
floor. He claims if I had been nervous, I would have jumped eighty
feet when it crashed down and as they is nothin' the matter with me, I
might as well be on my way. Well, I was up against it--but only for a
minute. That last crack of his gimme an idea. I makes a leap across
the floor, grabs my heart and starts to shake and shiver like a bum in
one of them "Curse of Drink" productions.
"What's the matter?" he calls out.
I looks wildly around the room, and I seen a fly upside down on the
window-sill tryin' to get to its feet.
"Oh!" I says. "I'm so nervous, doc, I'm shakin' like a crap-shooter.
D'ye see that fly? Well, it must have fell off the window just
then--it gimme an awful shock--y'know that sudden noise and--"
He throws up his hands.
"Come!" he tells me. "I'll assign you to a room."
That's how I come to get mixed up with the Red Cross.
Pretty soon they had the Kid's arm better than it ever was, but as they
was still workin' on his nerves, we stuck around at the sanitarium.
We're both on a diet, which meant that at each meal-time we was fed
about enough food to nourish a healthy infant about a half hour old.
The general idea of the stuff was along nursery lines, too--milk, eggs
and baby fodder, three times a day. I was O.K. when I went in there,
but in a couple of weeks I was the prize patient on account of them
meals. They tell me I raved one night and bellered for a rattle, and
Scanlan made the nurse tell him all about Jack the Giant Killer and Old
Mother Hubbard. The place must have been run by a guy who believed in
lettin' the dumb animals live, because you couldn't have got a piece of
meat in there, if you begged 'em for it till you was black in the face.
You could have milk and eggs or eggs and milk--that was the limit!
One mornin' the orderly forgets himself and asks me what I want for
breakfast. I thought they had let down the bars at last, and I all but
jumped out of the bed.
"Gimme a steak, French fried potatoes, coffee and hot rolls," I says.
"Have the potatoes well done and the steak rare."
"Rave on," he answers me. "Do you want the eggs boiled, fried or
scrambled? Ain't there no particular way you like 'em?"
"Not no more!" I groans, and falls back on the sheets.
The only bright spot in the whole thing was Miss Woods, the nurse that
caused me to enter the place. She used to come in every mornin' and
make me play a thermometer was a lollypop and I held the thing in my
mouth while she took my temperature and pulled a clock on my pulse.
Then the orderly would come in and take the fruit friends had left for
me, and I'd be all set for the day. When I kicked about the food, Miss
Woods claimed I ought to be tickled to get eggs to eat, because they
was very expensive on account of the late war. I says I didn't know
they had been fightin' with eggs in Europe, and she laughs and says I'm
delicious. She brought me in a book to read and on the cover it's all
about the nights of Columbus. I didn't even open the thing, because
what kind of nights could Columbus have had--they was nothin' doin' in
them days. She asks me what my occupation was and says maybe she could
arrange so's I could work at it while I was there to keep my mind off
things. I says I _dared_ anything to keep my mind off of her, and she
kinda frowns; so's to brighten things up I says before I come there I
had been a deck steward on a submarine, and it gets a laugh. Then she
says I looked like a bookkeeper, and I didn't know whether that was a
boost or a knock, so I passed it off by sayin' I had a chance to be
that when young, but had to give it up because I couldn't stand the
smell of ink.
After we have kidded like that for a while, I admits bein' Kid
Scanlan's manager, and with that she suddenly runs to the door and
closes it tight. She comes back on tip-toes, leans over the bed
lookin' at me for a minute and then she asks me very soft would I do
somethin' for her. I had got as far as offerin' to dive off the Singer
Buildin' into a bucket of water, when she cuts me off and tells me to
listen to her as they wasn't much time.
She asked me had I ever noticed a big, husky, black-haired guy out in
the exercise yard. I said I had. I remembered a big whale of a man,
with the face of a frightened kid, walkin' up and down, up and down,
all day long. Every now and then he'd stop and pick up a pebble or a
handful of dirt and take it to one side where he'd examine it for half
an hour. Then he'd throw it away and start that sentry thing again.
Well, she said, this bird had been down to South America where he had
discovered some kind of a mineral that had made him very rich and some
kind of a fever that had made him very sick. He was at the sanitarium
so's the doctors could keep a eye on him, the bettin' bein' about seven
to five that he would go nutty, if some excavatin' wasn't done
immediately on his dome. A operation will save him, but his parents
won't think of it, and there you are. When she stopped, I told her
that whilst I never had performed no operations before, beyond once
when I pulled a loose tooth of Scanlan's between the second and third
round of a fight, I would get somebody to sneak me in some tools and
get to work on the big guy the first chance I got. She give a little
squeal and says that wasn't what she wanted me to do, gettin' pale and
prettier every minute. I seen I pulled a bone, so I asks her to come
right out with it and whatever she said I'd do it or break a leg.
"Then when Mr. Scanlan takes his exercise every day with the boxing
gloves and punching bag," she says, "get him to persuade Arthur to join
him. Arthur would do it for him quicker than he would for me or any of
the doctors. He thinks we are all in league against him and he admires
Mr. Scanlan--I've read it in his face as he watches him out in the
yard. Arthur himself was a noted athlete before he went to South
America. He might even box with Mr. Scanlan. That would lessen the
tension on his mind and we might get him to see that an operation
is--Oh! Will you do it?" she breaks off suddenly, grabbin' my hand.
"Will I?" I says, holdin' on to that hand. "If Scanlan don't box him,
I'll take him on myself!"
"Oh, thank you--thank you!" she whispers, "I--"
"That's all right!" I cuts her off. "Is--ah--is the big fellow any
relation to you?"
She blushed. Yeh--and I looked at her, forgettin' a lot of things
about both of us that didn't quite match--and wished! I got everything
I had together for one good try, bein' handicapped by the fact that I
still had her hand and that room was goin' around like a top. And
then, poor boob--I looked down at the hand I didn't have, wonderin' why
she didn't answer me--and saw the answer on one finger. The darned
cold, glitterin' thing seemed to sneer at me. I felt like I'd stopped
one with my chin, and somethin' went outa me that ain't back yet.
What? Well, a guy can hope, can't he?
Say! That ring must have cost five hundred bucks--it was a pip!
I grabbed a drink of that darned milk to steady myself, and I seen from
the way she looked at me that she got me.
"I see!" I says, lettin' go of the hand that belonged to friend Arthur.
"He--and he went to South America, eh?"
"Listen!" she whispers, bendin' over. "You know now what this means to
me. If you'll help me, I'll do anything for you! Why--"
I sat up in bed and grabbed her hand again.
"Anything?" I asks her.
She looks out the window, gets pale and grits her teeth. You could see
she wished she hadn't said it, but she was game and was standin' pat.
"Anything!" she says.
"Then for the love of heaven!" I shoots out, "get me a piece of meat!
This egg and milk thing is drivin' me nutty!"
She wheeled around so quick the scared look was still on her face, and
for a minute we both just looked. Then she give a kinda nervous little
laugh, grabbed both my hands, squeezed 'em like a man--and blew!
Oh, boy! I ain't no hard loser but--
Well, it wasn't no trick at all to get big Arthur to box with the Kid.
He took to it like a chorus girl does to a telephone and what puzzled
me was why none of them fifty dollar doctors hadn't thought of it
before. I guess it was because they was nobody there husky enough to
handle him by themselves, because Arthur packed a wallop in each hand
that meant curtains, if it landed. Behind that was six-foot-two of
bone and about two hundred and forty pounds of muscle.
The Kid labored with him like a mother with a baby. He taught him how
to duck, feint, jab, uppercut, swing, stall, 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 air. He didn't know what it
meant, except that it was a cinch she wasn't wishin' him good luck.
That psychological thing was past me, too. I looked it up in the
dictionary, and it was there all right, but it could have been in
Russia as far as I was concerned, because the way it described it was
over my head. The Kid finally puts it right up to Miss Vincent, and
she tells him to find out for himself.
"Go over to that trick sanitarium of yours, and ask Miss Woods," she
tells him scornfully. "Maybe _she_ can tell you what it means!"
But at two o'clock, when the Kid is leavin' for his daily maulin' bee
with big Arthur, she comes along in her racin' car and asks him to go
to Los Angeles with her. The Kid stalls and says he's just about got
time to get over and give the South American entry a workout, although
he'd rather take the ride with her than defend his title against a
one-armed blind man. She frowns for a minute, and then she smiles and
says hop in with her and she'll drive him over to the sanitarium.
When they blowed in that night at seven o'clock, I seen the Kid looks
kinda worried, while he's washin' the Golden West off his face and
neck, so I ask him how Arthur is comin' along. Scanlan coughs a couple
of times and then he says he don't know, because he wasn't able to get
over there that afternoon--the first he'd missed since I promised the
world's champion girl I'd assist her. While I'm still bawlin' him out,
he claims it wasn't his fault, because the car broke down in the middle
of California and they had to get towed back.
I _will_ say I was sorry to find out that Miss Vincent wasn't above a
little rough stuff! Oh, you ladies!
The next day Genaro suddenly decides to take a scene in the Kid's
movie, and as we was under contract we had to stay. The third
afternoon, Miss Vincent gets a terrible headache and the Kid has to sit
on the hotel porch with her, readin' out loud her press notices from
the movie magazines.
I kept out of it, but thinkin' about Arthur and that little nurse over
there had me bitin' nails, and the next day I told the Kid if he didn't
go out and trade wallops with Arthur, I was through as his pilot. I
said that right out loud in front of Miss Vincent, lookin' her right in
them famous baby-blue eyes of hers. But you can't figure women--she
crossed me and tells the Kid to go and she'd go with him!
We went out in her racin' car, with me ridin' on the runnin' board and
thinkin' what a fine thing accident insurance was for a guy of moderate
means. By dumb luck we missed crashin' into the scenery along the road
and stopped outside the iron gates of the sanitarium. We had hardly
got in the office, when from down the hall we heard what sounded like a
race riot, and a couple of orderlies goes past us so fast that I didn't
believe it could be done, although I seen 'em. The Kid runs down to
where the noise was comin' from and I tagged along in the rear,
stoppin' with him outside a big two-doored room, where from the sounds
that crashed out from inside they was puttin' on a dress rehearsal of a
race riot.
While we stood there lookin' at each other, a familiar deep snarlin'
voice roars out over the others--they was a scream, too, that made me
neck and neck with the Kid as we busted in the locked doors and went
sprawlin' inside.
Oh, boy!
A half dozen nurses and two or three doctors is lined up against the
wall on the far side, crouchin' back of an operatic table and tryin' to
force their bodies through the hard cement. The place looks like a
cyclone had hit it, with the walls scraped and scarred and the floor
covered with plaster and what not like the show-room of a junk shop.
Half on the floor and half on a chair is Miss Woods. I hoped she had
only fainted.
In the middle of the room and backin' against the doors is a big,
growlin', red-eyed killer that used to be Arthur.
Most of his clothes is torn off where some of them poor little human
bein's had tried to hold him, and over his head he's swingin' a iron
pole he'd torn from the fancy front gate outside. Each time he swings,
he comes nearer that bunch with nothin' between them and Heaven but a
white enameled table. He didn't seem to notice Scanlan, who slid
almost to his feet, and rightin' himself like a cat, stepped back to
size the thing up. Then with a growl, Arthur chops at the operatin'
table with the pole and crumbles it like a berry box. The women
screamed--I think one of 'em fainted. The doctors spread in front of
them, as Arthur raised the pole to finish the job.
And then Scanlan, poppin' up from somewheres, jumps in front of Arthur,
his face the color of that busted table, but his body as steady as the
Rockies, as he plants himself there before the big guy, swingin' his
head back easily before that tremblin' iron pole. The Kid throws his
hands up in a fightin' position and dances from one foot to the other
lookin' for a openin', like a guy with a pail of water tryin' to put
out hell! Arthur hesitates, starin' wildly at the Kid, and then his
face begins to change till it's almost human. He looks like he's
tryin' to think.
"Come on!" bawls Scanlan--loud, to keep the crack out of his voice.
"Come on!" He dances around Arthur and makes a pass at him. "I got
some new ones to show you to-day!" he yells. "Hurry up, or
we--won't--have--time--to--mix it!"
I remember the head doc told me afterwards it was because the big
feller had been doin' that every day--boxin' with the Kid--for so long
that it--
But what's that matter now? Arthur dropped that iron pole, put up his
hands, grins like a baby and rocks the Kid with a straight left, while
them nurses and doctors tumbled out of the room thankin' their
different gods. Somebody carried out Miss Woods, too.
I guess Scanlan never battled before like he did in the next ten
minutes, because he was fightin' for the biggest purse he ever climbed
in a ring for--his life! The big guy smashed him all over the place
tryin' for a knockout like the Kid had taught him, crushin' his ribs in
the clinches till Scanlan's breathin' cut me to the heart and rainin'
wallops on him like a machine gun. Me? Oh, I didn't do much but root
for the Kid. Y'see I was beside that operatic table when Arthur lammed
it with the pole--some of it kinda glanced off and I stopped it with my
head. A game little bantam of a doctor hopped around 'em, as they
slewed over the floor, lookin' like a referee--but he was simply tryin'
to slip friend Arthur a hypodermic while Scanlan kept him busy.
Finally, the Kid staggers Arthur with a lucky right smash to the chin,
and then a half a dozen left and rights to the body cut his size down
to where the Kid could put all he had left in one swing--and it's all
over. The little doc with the hypo gets busy, and, when we left the
room, Arthur was headed for the operatin' pen--his trip havin' been
interrupted by the slight excitement Scanlan had stopped!
Well, me and the Kid was hustled upstairs to be fussed over, windin'
up, you might say, where we started, in the hospital. After a time
Miss Woods comes up and thanks us--at least she made a stab at it and
weeps. The operation had been a success, and when Arthur could walk he
was gonna reward Miss Woods for her lovin' care by marryin' her, and
she looked like she thought that was enough--ain't women a scream?
We was talkin' to the doctor, when Miss Vincent come in--stands in the
doorway for a minute lookin' like a swell picture in a punk frame, and
comes to the Kid with a yours-for-keeps look in her eyes. Scanlan
throws up his head like he's just thought of somethin'.
"Say!" he pipes through the bandages. "I know what that psychological
moment thing is now--the doc has just been tellin' me. It seems," he
says with a grin. "It seems I pulled one off here this afternoon!"
THE END
CHARLES ALDEN SELTZER'S WESTERN NOVELS
May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset and Dunlap's list.
THE WAY OF THE BUFFALO
Jim Cameron builds a railroad adjacent to Ballantine's property, even
though Ballantine threatens to kill him the day he runs it.
BRASS COMMANDMENTS
Stephen Lannon writes six commandments over six loaded cartridges set
out where the evil men who threaten him and the girl he loves, may see
them.
WEST!
When Josephine Hamilton went West to visit Betty, she met "Satan"
Lattimer, ruthless, handsome, fascinating, who taught her some things.
SQUARE DEAL SANDERSON
Square Deal Sanderson rode onto the Double A just as an innocent man
was about to be hanged and Mary Bransford was in danger of losing her
property.
"BEAU" RAND
Bristling with quick, decisive action, and absorbing in its love theme,
"Beau" Rand, mirrors the West of the hold-up days in remarkable fashion.
THE BOSS OF THE LAZY Y
Calumet Marston, daredevil, returns to his father's ranch to find it is
being run by a young woman who remains in charge until he accepts
sundry conditions.
"DRAG" HARLAN
Harlan establishes himself as the protector of Barbara Morgan and deals
out punishment to the girl's enemies through the lightning flash of
drawn guns.
THE TRAIL HORDE
How Kane Lawler fought the powerful interests that were trying to crush
him and Ruth Hamlin, the woman he loved, makes intensely interesting
reading.
THE RANCHMAN
The story of a two-fisted product of the west, pitted against a
rascally spoilsman, who sought to get control of Marion Harlan and her
ranch.
"FIREBRAND" TREVISON
The encroachment of the railroad brought Rosalind Benham--and also
results in a clash between Corrigan and "Firebrand" that ends when the
better man wins.
THE RANGE BOSS
Ruth Harkness comes West to the ranch her uncle left her. Rex
Randerson, her range boss, rescues her from a mired buckboard, and is
in love with her from that moment on.
THE VENGEANCE OF JEFFERSON GAWNE
A story of the Southwest that tells how the law came to a cow-town,
dominated by a cattle thief. There is a wonderful girl too, who wins
the love of Jefferson Gawne.
GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK