“Oh, I guess I could of went along all right,” said Midge. “Who was it that hung that left on the Dutchman’s jaw, me or you?”
“Yes, but you wouldn’t been in the ring with the Dutchman if it wasn’t for how I handled you.”
“Well, this won’t get us nowheres. The idear is that you ain’t worth no twenty-five percent now and it don’t make no diff’rence what come off a year or two ago.”
“Don’t it?” said Tommy. “I’d say it made a whole lot of diference.”
“Well, I say it don’t and I guess that settles it.”
“Look here, Midge,” Tommy said, “I thought I was fair with you, but if you don’t think so, I’m willin’ to hear what you think is fair. I don’t want nobody callin’ me a Sherlock. Let’s go down to business and sign up a contrac’. What’s your figger?”
“I ain’t namin’ no figger,” Midge replied. “I’m sayin’ that twenty-five’s too much. Now what are you willin’ to take?”
“How about twenty?”
“Twenty’s too much,” said Kelly.
“What ain’t too much?” asked Tommy.
“Well, Haley, I might as well give it to you straight. They ain’t nothin’ that ain’t too much.”
“You mean you don’t want me at no figger?”
“That’s the idear.”
There was a minute’s silence. Then Tommy Haley walked toward the door.
“Midge,” he said, in a choking voice, “you’re makin’ a big mistake, boy. You can’t throw down your best friends and get away with it. That damn woman will ruin you.”
Midge sprang from his seat.
“You shut your mouth!” he stormed. “Get out o’ here before they have to carry you out. You been spongin’ off o’ me long enough. Say one more word about the girl or about anything else and you’ll get what the Dutchman got. Now get out!”
And Tommy Haley, having a very vivid memory of the Dutchman’s face as he fell, got out.
Grace came in later, dropped her numerous bundles on the lounge and perched herself on the arm of Midge’s chair.
“Well?” she said.
“Well,” said Midge, “I got rid of him.”
“Good boy!” said Grace. “And now I think you might give me that twenty-five percent.”
“Besides the seventy-five you’re already gettin’?” said Midge.
“Don’t be no grouch, hon. You don’t look pretty when you’re grouchy.”
“It ain’t my business to look pretty,” Midge replied.
“Wait till you see how I look with the stuff I bought this mornin’!”
Midge glanced at the bundles on the lounge.
“There’s Haley’s twenty-five percent,” he said, “and then some.”
The champion did not remain long without a manager. Haley’s successor was none other than Jerome Harris, who saw in Midge a better meal ticket than his popular-priced musical show had been.
The contract, giving Mr. Harris twenty-five percent of Midge’s earnings, was signed in Detroit the week after Tommy Haley had heard his dismissal read. It had taken Midge just six days to learn that a popular actor cannot get on without the ministrations of a man who thinks, talks and means business. At first Grace objected to the new member of the firm, but when Mr. Harris had demanded and secured from the vaudeville people a one-hundred dollar increase in Midge’s weekly stipend, she was convinced that the champion had acted for the best.
“You and my missus will have some great old times,” Harris told Grace. “I’d of wired her to join us here, only I seen the Kid’s bookin’ takes us to Milwaukee next week, and that’s where she is.”
But when they were introduced in the Milwaukee hotel, Grace admitted to herself that her feeling for Mrs. Harris could hardly be called love at first sight. Midge, on the contrary, gave his new manager’s wife the many times over and seemed loath to end the feast of his eyes.
“Some doll,” he said to Grace when they were alone.
“Doll is right,” the lady replied, “and sawdust where her brains ought to be.”
“I’m li’ble to steal that baby,” said Midge, and he smiled as he noted the effect of his words on his audience’s face.
On Tuesday of the Milwaukee week the champion successfully defended his title in a bout that the newspapers never reported. Midge was alone in his room that morning when a visitor entered without knocking. The visitor was Lou Hersch.
Midge turned white at sight of him.
“What do you want?” he demanded.
“I guess you know,” said Lou Hersch. “Your wife’s starvin’ to death and your baby’s starvin’ to death and I’m starvin’ to death. And you’re dirty with money.”
“Listen,” said Midge, “if it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t never saw your sister. And, if you ain’t man enough to hold a job, what’s that to me? The best thing you can do is keep away from me.”
“You give me a piece o’ money and I’ll go.”
Midge’s reply to the ultimatum was a straight right to his brother-in-law’s narrow chest.
“Take that home to your sister.”
And after Lou Hersch had picked himself up and slunk away, Midge thought: “It’s lucky I didn’t give him my left or I’d of croaked him. And if I’d hit him in the stomach, I’d of broke his spine.”
There was a party after each evening performance during the Milwaukee engagement. The wine flowed freely and Midge had more of it than Tommy Haley ever would have permitted him. Mr. Harris offered no objection, which was possibly just as well for his own physical comfort.
In the dancing between drinks, Midge had his new manager’s wife for a partner as often as Grace. The latter’s face as she floundered round in the arms of the portly Harris, belied her frequent protestations that she was having the time of her life.
Several times that week, Midge thought Grace was on the point of starting the quarrel he hoped to have. But it was not until Friday night that she accommodated. He and Mrs. Harris had disappeared after the matinée and when Grace saw him again at the close of the night show, she came to the point at once.
“What are you tryin’ to pull off?” she demanded.
“It’s none o’ your
