I
Sam Stubener ran through his mail carelessly and rapidly. As became a
manager of prize-fighters, he was accustomed to a various and bizarre
correspondence. Every crank, sport, near sport, and reformer seemed
to have ideas to impart to him. From dire threats against his life
to milder threats, such as pushing in the front of his face, from
rabbit-foot fetishes to lucky horse-shoes, from dinky jerkwater bids
to the quarter-of-a-million-dollar offers of irresponsible nobodies,
he knew the whole run of the surprise portion of his mail. In his time
having received a razor-strop made from the skin of a lynched negro,
and a finger, withered and sun-dried, cut from the body of a white
man found in Death Valley, he was of the opinion that never again
would the postman bring him anything that could startle him. But this
morning he opened a letter that he read a second time, put away in
his pocket, and took out for a third reading. It was postmarked from
some unheard-of post-office in Siskiyou County, and it ran:
Dear Sam:
You don't know me, except my reputation. You come after my time,
and I've been out of the game a long time. But take it from
me I ain't been asleep. I've followed the whole game, and I've
followed you, from the time Kal Aufman knocked you out to your
last handling of Nat Belson, and I take it you're the niftiest
thing in the line of managers that ever came down the pike.
I got a proposition for you. I got the greatest unknown that ever
happened. This ain't con. It's the straight goods. What do you
think of a husky that tips the scales at two hundred and twenty
pounds fighting weight, is twenty-two years old, and can hit a
kick twice as hard as my best ever? That's him, my boy, Young
Pat Glendon, that's the name he'll fight under. I've planned it
all out. Now the best thing you can do is hit the first train
and come up here.
I bred him and I trained him. All that I ever had in my head I've
hammered into his. And maybe you won't believe it, but he's added
to it. He's a born fighter. He's a wonder at time and distance. He
just knows to the second and the inch, and he don't have to think
about it at all. His six-inch jolt is more the real sleep medicine
than the full-arm swing of most geezers.
Talk about the hope of the white race. This is him. Come and
take a peep. When you was managing Jeffries you was crazy about
hunting. Come along and I'll give you some real hunting and
fishing that will make your moving picture winnings look like
thirty cents. I'll send Young Pat out with you. I ain't able to
get around. That's why I'm sending for you. I was going to manage
him myself. But it ain't no use. I'm all in and likely to pass out
any time. So get a move on. I want you to manage him. There's a
fortune in it for both of you, but I want to draw up the contract.
Yours truly,