This time Midge passed up both Niemann’s and Duane’s, having a sizable account at each place, and sought his refreshment at Stein’s farther down the street.
When the profits of his deal with Tracy were gone, he learned, by firsthand information from Doc Hammond and the matchmakers at the other “clubs,” that he was no longer desired for even the cheapest of preliminaries. There was no danger of his starving or dying of thirst while Emma and Lou Hersch lived. But he made up his mind, four months after his defeat by Young Tracy, that Milwaukee was not the ideal place for him to live.
“I can lick the best of ’em,” he reasoned, “but there ain’t no more chanct for me here. I can maybe go east and get on somewheres. And besides—”
But just after Midge had purchased a ticket to Chicago with the money he had “borrowed” from Emma Hersch “to buy shoes,” a heavy hand was laid on his shoulders and he turned to face two strangers.
“Where are you goin’, Kelly?” inquired the owner of the heavy hand.
“Nowheres,” said Midge. “What the hell do you care?”
The other stranger spoke:
“Kelly, I’m employed by Emma Hersch’s mother to see that you do right by her. And we want you to stay here till you’ve done it.”
“You won’t get nothin’ but the worst of it, monkeying with me,” said Midge.
Nevertheless, he did not depart for Chicago that night. Two days later, Emma Hersch became Mrs. Kelly, and the gift of the groom, when once they were alone, was a crushing blow on the bride’s pale cheek.
Next morning, Midge left Milwaukee as he had entered it—by fast freight.
“They’s no use kiddin’ ourself anymore,” said Tommy Haley. “He might get down to thirty-seven in a pinch, but if he done below that a mouse could stop him. He’s a welter; that’s what he is and he knows it as well as I do. He’s growed like a weed in the last six mont’s. I told him, I says, ‘If you don’t quit growin’ they won’t be nobody for you to box, only Willard and them.’ He says, ‘Well, I wouldn’t run away from Willard if I weighed twenty pounds more.’ ”
“He must hate himself,” said Tommy’s brother.
“I never seen a good one that didn’t,” said Tommy. “And Midge is a good one; don’t make no mistake about that. I wisht we could of got Welsh before the kid growed so big. But it’s too late now. I won’t make no holler, though, if we can match him up with the Dutchman.”
“Who do you mean?”
“Young Goetz, the welter champ. We mightn’t not get so much dough for the bout itself, but it’d roll in afterward. What a drawin’ card we’d be, ’cause the people pays their money to see the fella with the wallop, and that’s Midge. And we’d keep the title just as long as Midge could make the weight.”
“Can’t you land no match with Goetz?”
“Sure, ’cause he needs the money. But I’ve went careful with the kid so far and look at the results I got! So what’s the use of takin’ a chanct? The kid’s comin’ every minute and Goetz is goin’ back faster’n big Johnson did. I think we could lick him now; I’d bet my life on it. But six mont’s from now they won’t be no risk. He’ll of licked hisself before that time. Then all as we’ll have to do is sign up with him and wait for the referee to stop it. But Midge is so crazy to get at him now that I can’t hardly hold him back.”
The brothers Haley were lunching in a Boston hotel. Dan had come down from Holyoke to visit with Tommy and to watch the latter’s protégé go twelve rounds, or less, with Bud Cross. The bout promised little in the way of a contest, for Midge had twice stopped the Baltimore youth and Bud’s reputation for gameness was all that had earned him the date. The fans were willing to pay the price to see Midge’s haymaking left, but they wanted to see it used on an opponent who would not jump out of the ring the first time he felt its crushing force. But Cross was such an opponent, and his willingness to stop boxing-gloves with his eyes, ears, nose and throat had long enabled him to escape the horrors of honest labor. A game boy was Bud, and he showed it in his battered, swollen, discolored face.
“I should think,” said Dan Haley, “that the kid’d do whatever you tell him after all you done for him.”
“Well,” said Tommy, “he’s took my dope pretty straight so far, but he’s so sure of hisself that he can’t see no reason for waitin’. He’ll do what I say, though; he’d be a sucker not to.”
“You got a contrac’ with him?”
“No, I don’t need no contrac’. He knows it was me that drug him out o’ the gutter and he ain’t goin’ to turn me down now, when he’s got the dough and bound to get more. Where’d he of been at if I hadn’t listened to him when he first come to me? That’s pretty near two years ago now, but it seems like last week. I was settin’ in the s’loon acrost from the Pleasant Club in Philly, waitin’ for McCann to count the dough and come over, when this little bum blowed in and tried to stand the house off for a drink. They told him nothin’ doin’ and to beat it out o’ there, and then he seen me and come over to where I was settin’ and ast me wasn’t I a boxin’ man and I told him who I was. Then he ast me for money to buy a shot and I told him to set down and I’d buy it for him.
“Then we got talkin’ things over and he told me his name and told me about fightn’ a couple o’ prelims out to
