P. G. Wodehouse

“ A HEAVY swing on the part of the Bear Cat was the next event of note. Freddie avoided it with ease, and slipped in a crisp left. As he had expected, his opponent was too slow to be dangerous. Dangerous! He was not even making the thing interesting, thought Freddie, as he side-stepped another swing and brought his right up to the chin. He went to his corner at the end of the round glowing with satisfaction. ”

“ THE thought of $100 is a reviving agent that, makes oxygen look like a sleeping draft. No sooner had it returned to his mind than his head cleared and he rose to his feet, as full of fight as ever. He perceived the Bear Cat slithering toward him, and leaped to one side like a Russian dancer. The Bear Cat collided with the ropes and grunted discontentedly.
PROBABLY, if Freddie had had a sizable plot of ground such as Yellowstone Park or California to maneuver in, he might have avoided his opponent for some considerable time. The ring being only twenty feet square, he was hampered. ”

“ The Tennessee Bear Cat nodded amiably at Freddie.
"Feeling better, kid? Why didn't you duck? I told you it was coming, didn't I?"
Mr. Bivatt groaned hollowly. Life was very gray. He was in the hands of the police, and he had indigestion and no pepsin tabloids.
"Say, it ain't so bad as all that," said the Bear Cat. "Not if you've got any sugar, it ain't."
"My doctor expressly forbids me sugar," replied Mr. Bivatt.
The Bear Cat gave a peculiar jerk of his head, indicative of the intelligent man's contempt for the slower-witted. ”

“ Bivatt. It was a transformed Mr. Bivatt, happier-looking, excited, altogether more human. Their eyes met, but there was no recognition in the millionaire's.
FREDDIE'S attention was diverted from audience to ring by the arrival of the Tennessee Bear Cat. There was a subdued murmur of applause. The Bear Cat was an extraordinarily muscled young man. Lumps and cords protruded from him in all directions. His face wore a look of placid content and he had a general air of happy repletion, a fate-cannot-touch-me-I-have-dined-to-day expression. ”

“ Having lost the Bear Cat—no difficult task, for he dived into the first saloon— Mr. Bivatt and Freddie turned their steps toward Broadway. A certain dignity which had been lacking in the dressing room had crept back into. Mr. Bivatt's manner.
"Go away." he said. "I will not have you following me."
"I am not following you," said Freddie. "We are walking arm in arm." ”

“ Bivatt, swallowing another tabloid, turned his attention once more to harrying the widow and the orphan.
It amazed Freddie when he set out on his pilgrimage, the difficulty of getting work. Work had always seemed to him so peculiarly unpleasant that he had supposed that the supply must exceed the demand. ”

“ The hotel in which Freddie had found employment was a sporting hotel in the heart of the Tenderloin. Its patrons were mainly racing men, gamblers, and drummers, men of action rather than words. This particular patron was essentially the man of action. He hit Freddie in the eye. Five minutes later Freddie, panting a little and blinking to ease the pain of his injured eye, was waiting for his opponent to rise from the floor. ”

“ HIS eyes having grown accustomed to the light, he saw with astonishment that remarkable changes had taken place in the room. With the exception of some half dozen persons, the audience had disappeared entirely, and each of those who remained was in the grasp of a massive policeman. Two more intelligent officers were beckoning to him to come down from the platform.
The New York police force is subject to periodical attacks of sensitiveness with regard to the purity of the city. ”

“ But nobody could call it dull, and Freddie reveled in his duties. He booked orders, served drinks, smashed plates, bullied the cook, chaffed the customers when they were merry, seized them by the neck and ran them into the street when they were too merry, and in every other way comported himself like one who has at last found his true vocation. And time rolled on.
WE WILL leave time rolling for the moment and return to Mr. Bivatt, raising the curtain at the beginning of his tête-à-tête dinner with his fellow plutocrat. T. Mortimer Dunlop. T. Mortimer was the other sort of millionaire. ”

“ The customers expected it. If you called a patron of the Fast Side Delmonico's "sir," he scented sarcasm and was apt to throw things.
The young man had a grievance.
"Say, can you beat it! Me signed up to fight a guy here at a hundred and thirty-three, ring side, and starving meself for weeks to make the weight—say I ain't had a square meal since Ponto was a pup—and gee! along comes word that he's sprained a foot and will we kindly not expect him. And all I get is the forfeit money. Forfeit money! Keep it! It ain't but a hundred plunks. Say, I'd have licked that guy with me eyes shut." ”

“ In between these spasms a certain lethargy seems to grip it. but when it does act, its energy is wonderful. The East Side Delmonico's had been raided.
It was obvious that the purity of the city demanded that Freddie should appear in court in a less exiguous costume than his present one. The two policemen accompanied him to the dressing room.
On a chair in one corner sat the Tennessee Bear Cat, lacing his shoes. On a chair in another corner sat Mr. Franklyn Bivatt, holding his head in his hands. ”

“ Dunlop snorted.
"I can give you something better than a show," he said.
One thing leads to another. The curtain falls on Mr. Bivatt smoking a Turkish cigarette in a manner that can only be described as absolutely reckless.
THESE things, I should mention, happened on a Saturday night. About an hour after Mr. Bivatt had lit his cigarette. Freddie, in the café at the Fast Side Delmonico's, was aware of a thick-set, short-haired, tough-looking young man settling himself at one of the tables and hammering a glass with the blade of his knife. ”

“ Well, it's you or nobody. I'll give you a hundred if you last five rounds. I guess five'll satisfy them if you make them fast ones. I'll go and tell the Bear Cat."
"And I'll go and get him his coffee and the strongest cigar you keep. Every little helps."
FREDDIE entered the ring in a costume borrowed from one of the fighters in the preliminaries, and, seating himself in his corner, ran his eye over Mr. "Blinky" Anderson's celebrated basement. Most of the light in the place was concentrated over the roped platform of the ring, and all he got was a vague impression of space. ”

“ His specialty is aristocratic idleness. He has never done a day's work in his life. No Datchet ever has, apparently. The last time any of the bunch ever showed any signs of perspiring at the brow was when the first earl carried William the Conqueror's grip down the gangway. Is that your long suit too—trembling when you see a job of work? Have you earned a cent in your life?"
"No. But—"
"It isn't a case of but. There wasn't any need for you to work, and so on. I know all that. The point is that the man who marries Margaret has got to be capable of work. ”