or have that nice nose of his broken. Dave assured her that Dick showed
signs of being very quick. “He has a long reach,” he said. “I shouldn’t
be surprised if he does things; he is quicker than he looks.”
Dick glowed with pleasure and went up to tell his mother all about it.
But Mrs. Donovan wouldn’t hear of fighting as a profession. “All thim
fighters,” she said, “get dhrunk and look fierce. Sure, we can wait a
wake or two till ye get honest work.”
But Dick knew better--knew that there was no time to lose; that already
the portions of meat at supper had grown small and stringy. So he just
resolved to keep his own counsel and do his very best; and, boylike, he
lay awake a long time thinking of how he could strike and get his head
out of the way, because Dave had rocked him once with an uppercut that
hurt.
* * * * *
Now began for Dick a wondertime. By nine o’clock next morning he was at
Heenan’s, made his way to the back room and went over to Ed Jones, who
happened to be talking with two other boys.
“Feel stiff?” asked Jones.
“No,” replied Dick, “but I had a bit of a headache last night.”
“That will wear off,” said Jones. “Do you want to put them on again?”
“Sure,” said Dick. And in two minutes they were hard at it; and after
Jones he took on another boy, and a little later another.
Dick was toughened by hard and constant work, but he soon found that
there is no taskmaster so exacting as one’s own desire. He boxed that
day till he ached from head to foot, and yet when newcomers came in and
wanted a round or two he was always willing to put on the gloves and
try to learn something new.
At noon he went out and got a sandwich, and when he came back he was so
tired that he fell asleep and slept through all the hubbub till nearly
four o’clock. Then he got on the job again and soon found out that it
was better to slip blows than ward them off, for by slipping them he
had both hands free to hit with.
That very first day Dick began training his head to slip to one side or
the other, and soon his head began to guard itself by getting out of
the way automatically.
There was no dreaming and wondering for him that night. As soon as his
head touched the pillow he fell asleep.
The days passed in a whirl till Sunday, when Dick was so tired that he
slept right on till past noon, exhausted nature taking its revenge. He
had a little chat about two o’clock with Maggie, who told him that
Dave had made five hundred dollars on horses; then he went out for a
walk right up to the park and fell asleep on the grass. But on Monday
he was at work before nine o’clock and as keen as ever. To his delight
he found that he had improved out of all recognition. The rest had
enabled him to realise his knowledge.
The first boy he boxed with was a feather-weight called Jack Geary, and
he found that he could nearly hold his own, and after the bout was over
he got an approving nod and a word of good advice from Ricker.
“Don’t mix it, you boob,” said Ricker, “when he is short and strong.
Keep him out. Use the length of your arms.”
It was true, Dick felt, and he put the tip into practice. When Ed Jones
boxed with him that afternoon he was astonished at his progress. “You
will make some fighter,” he said, “if you keep on. When a man tries to
come in remember he’s as likely to come round your left arm as inside
it, so always be ready with your right fist.”
That day brought Dick several new lessons and he profited by them. He
was soon well liked by most of the fellows in the place because he was
always willing to box with any of them, and in fact he did more work in
the next week than all of them put together.
One day Mr. Ricker brought a gentleman in and Dick soon discovered that
he was twice as quick and could play with him; but after the first
round Ricker drew him aside. “You don’t want to hit him,” he said, “you
want him to hit you. If he knocks you down he will pay. Tell him he is
hitting so hard that it hurts. They love to hear them things.”
Dick went home that night with six dollars, which hugely increased his
zeal, though his mother was not satisfied till she had daubed all his
face with arnica.
In a month Dick was one of the regular boys, willing to mix it with
anyone and not likely to come to much injury, while his pay had risen
to be twelve or fifteen dollars a week.
One day Ed Jones asked him if he would go over to Philadelphia with
him. There was a house there where they were giving ten and twenty
dollars a night, and Ed thought they would have no trouble in coming
back with a hundred dollars or even two for a week’s work. “I want the
dough,” said Jones; “my girl wants to doll up all the time and that
takes coin in New York.”
They went to Philadelphia, but in spite of Ed’s coaching Dick had a
very unpleasant experience.
After two or three fairly light bouts he was matched to box Harry
Wilkins for two hundred and fifty dollars, a gold watch, and the
feather-weight championship of Pennsylvania for boys under eighteen
years of age. The promoters had advertised the match very cleverly;
the feather-weight championship under eighteen limited the competition
to a very small number, and it was told to the boys that the prize was
really one hundred dollars, and a gold watch worth one hundred and
fifty dollars, which an enterprising firm of watchmakers had supplied
for the advertisement.
Dick had never seen his opponent till he entered the ring at
Oddfellows’ Hall at nine o’clock that night, but from the thundering
applause that greeted Wilkins when he appeared there could be no doubt
that he was a popular favorite.
Dick measured his adversary with a glance and thought he might be a
tough customer, and Ed at once advised caution: “He’s quick and strong
and the old hands all say that he’s full of tricks, so take care.”
At first the lads felt each other out cautiously, but almost at once
Dick’s long stabbing left hand seemed to disconcert his opponent, and
Dick began to hope for an easy victory. Ever afterwards he laid one
proverb to heart: “Easy beginnings often have hard endings.” Very early
he noticed that Wilkins was clever in dodging with his head, and in the
third round he only just stopped him from getting to close quarters by
a half-arm jolt with his right and a lightning step back. Still Dick
was very confident from the beginning that he could win, and win easily.
This confidence in prize-fighters is often misjudged by the outside
public. The truth is that fighting men are trained so severely that
they enter the ring in the very pink of physical condition. They feel
so well, so strong and lithesome that they can’t imagine defeat. A boy
of one hundred and ten pounds feels that he could fight Samson or
Goliath--that no blow could hurt him; it’s only long experience teaches
him that his confidence is the mere conceit of perfect health.
The fourth and fifth rounds both went to Dick, though he remarked that
his opponent managed to slip or guard all his really heavy blows and
the light ones didn’t seem to make much impression on him.
At the sixth round Dick stepped toward mid-ring with the resolve to
get home with at least one heavy blow. With this in mind he put more
weight than usual into his left leads, and Wilkins shook his head over
one as if dazed; at once Dick followed it up with a hot left and right.
Both missed by an inch or so and Dick’s own impetus brought him into a
clinch.
“Break away there, break away,” warned the referee, stepping forward;
but before the two could be separated Wilkins had screwed himself round
Dick and given him a half-arm punch in the side and small of the back.
In a moment they were parted, but the “kidney punch” had gone home
and Dick began to feel sick and weak, as if all the vitality had been
suddenly drained out of him.
“Spar with him, keep him away, side-step him,” called Jones in a frenzy
of fear, and Dick did his best to follow the advice, but he had all he
could do to evade his adversary, and never in his life did he find a
round so long. When he got back to his corner Ed was very helpful; he
rubbed the sore spot gently, gave Dick a mouthful or two of brandy and
assured him that if he could only keep up the defensive for two or
three more rounds he might yet win.
Dick did all he knew. Bit by bit the faint, sick feeling vanished
and he felt the constant stabbing with his left was again beginning
to tell; but for the life of him he couldn’t put vim enough into his
work to win the fight. Still his pluck gained him a good many friends
who knew nothing of the foul blow, and when the fight was proclaimed
a draw, and the purse divided, Dick was glad to take the gold watch
as his reward, though its real value was probably less than the one
hundred dollars which fell to Wilkins.
That fight taught Dick a painful lesson in the importance of caution
and humility.
When he returned to New York after a couple of weeks he had cleared
one hundred and twenty-five dollars in cash, and as luck would have it
found his mother out shopping, so he knocked at the Rubins’ door.
Maggie was crying and Dick was delighted to caress and make up to her.
What was the matter?
“Dave has lost all his money,” she said, and to console her Dick
slipped her the extra twenty-five dollars he had made. She threw her
arms around his neck of her own accord and gave him a long, long kiss
on the mouth that awakened all his senses.
That night a surprise was awaiting him at Heenan’s. For the first time
he saw Zu Lenward, the bantam-weight champion, box with three or four
of the boys, and was astonished at his footwork. He not only got his
head out of the way, but his body as well. Dick had begun to find out
that a punch in the wind, as they called the pit of the stomach, was
even more unpleasant than a jolt to the jaw. Then, too, when Lenward
struck the weight of the blow came from his hip and back as well as
from his arm. Dick saw at once that Lenward could beat Jones because of
fast footwork, and he got still another lesson.
At about ten o’clock Mr. Ricker brought in a funny little old man,
introduced him as Patsy M’Gee, and said he would have to keep order,
because it appeared there had been a good deal of drunkenness and free
fighting the night before.
At the idea of Patsy keeping order Dick laughed, for in truth he was a
comical figure. His head was almost over his left shoulder and the left
side of his face was all wrinkled up. Dick made some such remark to
Jones about him, but was astonished at his reply.
“A light-weight champion once,” said Ed, “but he was knocked out badly
later and got a paralytic stroke; very useful with both hands and a
rushin’ infighter, like them Irish usually are.”
In a short time Dick and Patsy became firm friends. Perhaps because the
boy was Irish, Patsy was never tired of teaching him and giving him
advice.
One day, during a prolonged bout with Jack Geary, who was going to
fight for the feather-weight championship, Patsy took Dick in hand:
“Keep him out,” he said; “use your long arms. If he comes in stop him
or side-step him; but try to keep him out. In two or three rounds he
will be shaken; you will have knocked all the pep out of him. Use your
natural advantage, boy. You have extraordinarily long arms; use them.”
And after the bout nothing would do but Dick must stretch out his arms
to their full length and have them measured. “Sure,” affirmed Patsy,
“what did I tell ye? Instead of seventy inches, stretch you have
seventy-five inches. Arms two or three inches longer than anyone of
your weight in New York.”
After a week of Patsy’s training Dick passed into the championship
class. He was already making twenty-five and fifty dollars a week, and
his mother began talking about a house at Mamaroneck which she had once
seen on a Sunday trip with her husband.
“We could get the whole house and garden,” she said, “for a couple of
thousand dollars, and I could keep chickens and a pig and make ye more
comfortable. Ye don’t need to be up early to get to Heenan’s by ten or
eleven o’clock.”
The truth was the little woman was frightened of Maggie and her
influence, and she knew as well as if she had been told that while Dick
always gave her twenty dollars a week, the rest of his money went to
Maggie, and she wanted to get Dick out of her clutches.
When Patsy M’Gee heard of Mrs. Donovan’s wish he made up a party for
the next Sunday and took her and Dick out to Mamaroneck. They had
a great day and saw the house; it overlooked the Sound and had two
acres of ground around it--a lovely little place. Mrs. Donovan was
in ecstasies, but the price put on it they found to be five thousand
dollars, and that frightened Mrs. Donovan, though the agent said he
would take one thousand dollars down and the rest in three years. And
when Dick opened his eyes at the one thousand dollars Patsy told him
the great news, that already he had been mentioned for the next good
fight and he might make five hundred dollars out of it.
A week later, with Patsy as chief agent, Dick was matched to fight Jack
Geary, who had already been mentioned as the most probable American
feather-weight to box Cock Robin, as he was called, the English
champion who was coming across with a great reputation.
Dick had nearly a month to prepare and in this month Patsy M’Gee showed
himself to be a trainer of the first class.
“You must strengthen your back muscles, my boy,” he told Dick, and
presented him with a pair of heavy dumbells. “They all use the light
ones,” he went on, “but I want ’em heavy for you. You are young and are
coming to the end of your growth; you will have lots of extra pep to
put into your back muscles now and that is where you want weight.”
Then he taught Dick how to swing Indian clubs, and again he insisted on
these being heavy.
Dick took to it all with his usual enthusiasm, and he found that the
dumbells and clubs strengthened his back and biceps from day to day; in
fact he grew so rapidly in weight that in a week Patsy began to wonder
whether he could keep down to the weight, and started him off on a long
fast walk each morning to take down any fat.
About a week before the great night Patsy introduced Dick to Sid
Harriman, a betting man, whom the boys thought to be a millionaire.
Strange to say, Harriman, after looking him over, was pleased with his
chance, and when he saw Dick box once or twice he was more pleased
still, though Patsy admitted that he was not certain enough to bet much
money on him. “You see,” said Patsy, “it takes a cert before they put
down the dough.”
A week later Dick had his first real trial. At first it looked as if he
must be beaten. In the third round Jack Geary managed to get in and do
what he would; Dick could not get rid of him, and Jack punched him in
the body again and again till he felt sick.
In his corner Patsy was full of advice. “Side-step him,” he said;
“side-step him and keep him out; you can only wear him out. Don’t let
him mix it. If he gets in again, clinch.”
And so with varying fortunes the fight went on, round after round. One
round went to Dick because he was able to keep his adversary out or
side-step him and his long arms did their work; other rounds went to
Jack because he managed to fight his way in and used his body blows
tellingly.
About the sixteenth round Dick began to feel that Geary was not hitting
as hard as at the beginning, and when he came back to his corner he
found Patsy of the same opinion.
“Go in and win,” he advised. “Hit him with the left and follow with the
right as hard as you can on top of it. One good punch will finish him.”
Patsy told the truth. Dick half feinted, half struck, and followed it
up with a heavy right, and Geary went to the floor and took the count.
Dick felt sorry for him, but Patsy whispered: “That’s the house at
Mamaroneck. I’m going home with you to tell your mother; it was a great
blow entoirely.” And Patsy said it full of admiration, just as if he
hadn’t suggested it himself.
To Dick’s astonishment he found that he had won not only five hundred
dollars, but one hundred dollars more that Mr. Harriman had left for
him.
Patsy talked all the way home. “Cut out the booze and the wimmin,” he
said, “and you’ll be the first fighter in America.”
“What was it knocked you out?” asked Dick at last.
“Both,” answered Patsy. “But it was the booze that made me a cripple.
Sure, I was half drunk when I went into the ring. I could almost see
two fighters agin’ me instead of wan.”
Mrs. Donovan was delighted, and asked Patsy in the nicest way whether
he would not come out to stay with Dick and help him always with his
advice; and Patsy said that was exactly what he wanted to do if she
would take board-money from him.
They resolved at last to buy the house if it could be bought and go
out at once with Patsy as a lodger. But the mother noticed that Dick
was not keen about this. She noticed, too, that fifty dollars had
disappeared next morning and that Maggie had a new dress on and a new
hat that must have cost all of ten dollars. “The slut!” she said to
herself.
A night or two later she had a real talk with her son.
“I only want your good,” she said; “ye are all I have in the world. I
would give ye all the girls in New York if it would do ye any good; but
Maggie Rubin is not a good girl, and if ye want me to I can prove it.”
But Dick didn’t want any proof. He kissed his mother and told her she
was the best mother in the world and then went out to fight his first
soul-battle alone.
That week he was with Maggie more than ever, perhaps because of the new
dress and hat. Towards the end of the week, after a round or two with
Ed Jones, Patsy took him seriously to task.
“Why is it you are not so fast to-day?” he said. “It isn’t booze with
you. Wimmin’s the divil!” he went on; “the bad ones are ruination and
the good ones won’t lave a man alone.”
Dick scarcely needed telling. He, too, had felt when sparring with
Jones that his blows lacked speed; he sometimes saw the opening almost
as soon as his hand took advantage of it, whereas before his hands were
always quicker than his eyes.
A little later the crisis came. When he got home he found his mother
waiting for him, and she spoke briefly and to the point:
“The girl’s out with a salesman from Macy’s,” she said, “and I heard
him say he was going to take her to a roadhouse for the night, and
that’s not the first time, I’ll be bound,” she added.
That was the worst night in Dick’s life. To say he was awake all night
would be nothing like the truth; he was mad with jealousy and rage, and
when it got light his mother knew that he was crying in his bed at the
side. She had stretched burlap from the ceiling between the beds so as
to give both all possible privacy. Her heart was as sore as Dick’s and
she suffered with him.
When Dick got up he went straight to Heenan’s and sought out Patsy.
“Let’s go out to Mamaroneck at once,” he said; “to-day if you like.”
But matters could not move as quickly as that.
Before he went he got a note from Maggie, who had somehow or other
heard of the intended moving, begging him to see her.
“Dick, you must forgive me,” she said, kissing him. “I love you, you
know, dear; but I’ve got to get money to keep the house, Dick. Dave
brings in nothing, and my father’s only good to be a Rabbi and say
prayers and mother and I must live. Mr. Williams is the head salesman
at Macy’s and gets one thousand dollars a month now and a commission.
If you had such a place--oh, Dick, it’s too hard, for I love you,” and
she hugged him; “but what’s a girl to do. After all one must have money
to live. Dick, say you’ll always care for me--won’t you, dearest?”
Dick nodded his head; he could find no words. He was numbed and for
the moment felt nothing, and when afterwards the pain began again he
found it was lessened by Maggie’s assurance that she loved him best,
so strong is vanity even in passion. And Maggie probably believed her
protestations of affection, though in the back of her little head she
knew that Mr. Williams was “a dandy dancer,” as she phrased it, and
took her to dine and dance at swell places Dick had never heard of,
though Williams didn’t slip her fifty or one hundred dollars as Dick
did, and was not so loving. Still his position was sure, and he had
told her he’d be rich one day and already he had twenty-five thousand
dollars in good securities laid by, and that seemed to Maggie a fortune.
Take it all in all, Maggie was rather relieved that the Donovans were
going to move, for Dick’s propinquity and passion were tempting, and
she knew instinctively that Williams wouldn’t forgive an infidelity as
easily as Dick did--“dear Dick!”
In concert with Mrs. Donovan, Patsy got Dick two contests at
Philadelphia, which took him away for a while, and when he returned
to old New York he found his mother and Patsy already settled in
Mamaroneck.
* * * * *
With one exceptional happening Dick’s career in the next two years
could be told in a phrase. He fought Cock Robin, the best English
fighter of his weight, and won after a hard battle of eighteen rounds,
mainly because the fight with Geary had taught him how to keep his man
at arm’s length and use his height and length of reach. Height helps a
man; you can hit down heavier than up, and length of reach, too, Dick
found, helped him, as a longer sword used to help a duellist till it
was forbidden and the swords were equalised to an eighth of an inch.
Thanks to the open-air runs and the constant exercise with clubs and
dumbells, reinforced now with all sorts of stomach exercises under
Patsy M’Gee’s superintendence, Dick grew rapidly in sheer muscle
weight, and with all the glory of his victory over the English champion
about him, was matched to fight Zu Lenward for the bantam championship
of the world.
Zu, Dick found, was short for Zulu, because Lenward had coloured blood
in him. Anyway, according to Patsy, he was a real opponent and “up to
every trick in the game, but a little ould; he must be thirty if he’s a
day.”
A week before the fight Sid Harriman drew Dick aside. “What will you
make by winning?” he asked.
“The purse is for two thousand dollars,” replied Dick simply.
“You can have ten thousand dollars,” said Harriman, looking him
straight in the eyes, “to lose in the eleventh round.”
“How do you mean?” asked Dick.
“Let yourself be knocked out,” answered Harriman. “I will tell Lenward,
and the punch you will get on your jaw won’t do you any harm, and
you can flop about like a fish on the floor as well as another man I
suppose.”
Dick looked at him. Sell the fight? Not he. But he went to Patsy with
the news, and to his astonishment Patsy was delighted with the offer:
“Ten thou.!” he cried; “that’s goin’ some.”
“But I can’t take it,” said Dick; “I’d be ashamed to sell a fight----”
“You can’t buck against the game,” Patsy admonished. “Nobody can
be honest in this life. Suppose you go on bein’ honest and beatin’
everybody, no wan will bet agin’ ye. You won’t get a match, man;
they’ll avoid ye like the plague. All the excitement is in the doubt.
“Take the ten thousand dollars for being knocked out or you’ll regret
it. It will increase the interest for your next fight, and if you win
that there’ll be more dough still in being knocked out the time after.
Don’t be a fool. Sure, no wan will bet on you if he does not win by you.
“Take the ten thousand dollars, boy, and put it in your kick. You make
glory by winnin’ but the dough by losin’.”
Dick could not stomach this advice. Sid Harriman did not come near him
though Patsy was evidently on his side. A day or two afterwards he
returned to the charge.
“You’re young, Dick,” he said, “and you scarcely know what a foul is.
You’re a clean fighter; but nobody can be honest in this game, Dick,
nobody. You are very good, but as good as you or better can be found.
Put the money in your jeans, man, and don’t be a boob!
“I know what life is. You have only five years at this game. At the end
of that time you’ll either be a rich man or you will be knocked out and
poor, perhaps paralytic. Dick, if you were my own son, I’d tell you the
same thing. Let me go to Mr. Harriman and accept his offer. I’ll get
you two thousand in advance--as much as you’d get by winnin’--and eight
thou, after. What better can ye want?”
Dick shook his head. He was obstinate, though honesty to him was only
a word. In his cruel doubt he went to his mother for counsel. “You
dassen’t act dishonest, Dick,” she cried, “and yer father a polisman;
but Patsy,” she added inconsecutively, as Dick thought, “is a good man
and a friendly.” Something obstinate in Dick made him stick to his
first resolution.
* * * * *
Was it Dick’s fancy when the great day came, or was there really an
air of doubt in the room before the fight began?