“Box or fight, I don’t care which, just so’s I can learn the rules,” said the hick.
“Did you ever box?” says Howard.
“No,” says the kid, “but I can learn quick and I’m willing to pay for it. I got plenty of money. I got pretty close to $700.”
Howard ast him what was his name and where he come from and his business.
“My name’s Burke and I work on my old man’s farm,” he says. “It’s acrost the Lake, outside of Benton Harbor. We raise peaches.”
“Has your old man got money?” ast Howard.
“Plenty,” says the kid.
“Well,” said Howard, “if you work on a farm, you’re getting plenty of exercise. And if your old man’s rich, you ain’t after the sugar. So what’s the idear of going into this game?”
“I don’t want to go in no game,” he says. “I just want to learn good enough so’s I can win this one match and then I’m through.”
“What one match?” says Howard.
“With Charley Porter,” says Burke.
Well, of course you’ve heard of Charley Porter. He’s a Benton Harbor boy too. He’d fought Lewis twice and Britton once and he’d give them both a sweet battle. He was considered about fourth or fifth best amongst the welters. So it struck Howard funny that this green rube, that hadn’t never boxed, should think he could take a few lessons and then be good enough to beat a boy like Porter.
“You’re an ambitious kid,” he says to him, “but if I was you I’d take my seven hundred men and invest it some other way. Porter’s had forty fights, and that’s what counts. You could take all the lessons in the world, and he’d make a monkey out of you. Unless you’re a boy wonder or something. But even if you are, you couldn’t get no match with Porter till you’d proved it. And that means you’d have to beat some other good boys first.”
So Burke said: “All I come to Chicago for is to take some boxing lessons. They told me you was the man to come and see. If I’m willing to pay the money, it shouldn’t ought to make no difference to you if I get a match with Porter or not. Or if I lick him or not.”
“That’s right,” said Howard. “Only I ain’t no burglar or no con man. I’m in this business for money, but I don’t want to take nobody’s money without they get what they think they’re paying for. And if you had seven million smackers I couldn’t guarantee to make you a good boxer, not good enough to land you a match with Porter.”
“I ain’t asking you to land no match,” says Burke. “I’ll tend to that part. He’ll fight me as soon as I think I’m ready. If he don’t, I’ll run him out of Michigan. He wouldn’t dast stay round there if everybody was saying I had him scared. And that’s what they’d say if he wouldn’t fight me.”
“Why would they?” says Howard. “He’s in the game for money, too, and he couldn’t get no money for a bout with a guy like you that nobody ever heard of. They wouldn’t no club match you up.”
“I won’t have no trouble getting matched up,” says Burke. “Fitzsimmons will put us on right there in Benton Harbor. The town’s nuts over Porter and they’ll pay to see him any time. And whatever purse they offer is all his. I’ll fight him for nothing.”
“Oh!” says Howard. “That makes it different! You’re sore at him!”
“No,” says the hick, “I’m not sore at him.”
“You just don’t like him,” says Howard.
“I don’t know if I like him or not,” said Burke. “I don’t even know him.”
“But for some reason you want to give him a trimming,” says Howard. “Well, listen, boy: I understand they’s no capital punishment in your State, so it looks to me like you’d run less risk of getting killed if you’d sneak in Porter’s house some night w’ile he’s asleep and kiss him on the brow with a meat ax.”
Burke didn’t crack a smile.
“That wouldn’t get me nowheres,” he said. “They’s a reason I got to box him. If you can learn me, all right. If not, I’ll go somewheres else.”
So Howard made a date for him to come back the next day.
II
Well, when the kid stripped for action, Howard’s eyes popped out. With them comic clothes on, he’d looked awkward; he was a picture with them off. Howard says he felt like inviting the best sculptures in Chi to come and take a look.
“I was going to box with him myself,” says Howard, “but not after I seen them shoulder muscles. I figured I didn’t have enough insurance to justify me putting on the gloves with this bird. So I made Joe Rivers take him.”
Well, they could see in a minute that the rube was a born boxer. He was fast as a streak and in one lesson he learnt more than most boys picks up in a month. They just showed him how to stand and the rest seemed to come natural. In a little w’ile Joe, with all his experience, was having trouble to land, whereas Burkey was hitting Joe as often as he felt like. Only he didn’t put no zip in his punches. He pulled them all.
“Cut loose once!” says Howard. “Let’s see if you can knock him down!”
“Oh, no,” said Burkey. “This ain’t in earnest.”
Rivers looked just as well satisfied, but Howard says:
“You got to be in earnest, even when you’re just working out. They’s lots of boys as strong as you that don’t know how to get their stren’th into their punch. That’s a thing that’s got to be learnt, and I can’t learn you if I can’t see you wallop.”
“No,” says Burke. “I ain’t going to hurt nobody for nothing.”
And all Howard’s coaxing done no good. He wouldn’t cut loose.
But at the end of the six weeks he stuck round Howard’s
