Once to Every Man

“Of course,” he agreed softly. “Quite right–quite right! And–er–may I inquire if it was something of importance–something directly concerning me–which has resulted in this neighborly call?”

He did not so much as lift his eyes from the dominoes beneath his fingers. If he had he would have seen, as Ogden saw, that Denny’s smile faded away–disappeared entirely. But when he replied the boy’s voice was unchanged.

“I don’t know’s it’s particularly important to you,” he answered. “That’s what I came down for–to see. I was directed–back a day or two I was told that maybe if I looked you up you’d have some opening for me, down here. I was told you were looking for a–a good heavyweight fighter!”

Bobby Ogden threw back his head to laugh. And instead he just sat there with his mouth wide open, waiting. He felt sure that there was a better moment coming. Hogarty fiddled with the dominoes and seemed to be considering that information with due deliberation and from every angle.

“I see,” he murmured at last. “Surely. Quite right–quite right! And I may, I believe, safely assure you that I have several fine openings in the establishment for young men–for just the right sort of young men, of course. May I–er–inquire if you wish employment by the–er–week, or just in your spare time, to put it so?”

The question was icily sarcastic. Denny’s answer came sharp upon its heels. His voice was just as measured, just as inflectionless as Hogarty’s had been.

“If you hire them here by the week,” he said, “or for their spare time, I–I reckon I’ve come to the wrong establishment. I was only asking you for a chance to show you whether I was any good or not. I was told you’d be just as interested to find out as I was myself. Maybe–maybe I’ve made a bad mistake!”

Bobby Ogden was sorry he had waited to laugh. There was a hardness in the big-shouldered figure’s words that he did not like; a directly simple, unmistakable rebuke for the sneer concealed in Hogarty’s question that could not be misinterpreted. And something utterly bad flared up in the lean-faced black-clad proprietor’s eyes–something of enmity that seemed to Ogden all out of proportion with the provocation. All the smooth suavity disappeared from his speech just as chalk marks are wiped out by a wet sponge. And Hogarty came swiftly to his feet.

“Maybe you were–maybe you did make a bad mistake!” he rasped out in a dead, colorless monotone that scarcely moved his lips. “But no man ever came into this place yet, and went out again to say he didn’t get his chance. I know a few specimens who make a profession of pleading that. They’re quitters–and they assay a streak of yellow that isn’t pay dirt!”

His voice dropped in register. It just missed being hoarse. With a rapidity that was almost bewildering he began to give orders to the two boys who were still phlegmatically waxing the floor. And the English-professor intonation was gone entirely.

“You, Joe!” he called, “get out the rods; set ’em up and rope her off! Legs, you chase out and find Sutton, if he’s not in back. You’ll run into him at Sharp’s, most likely. Tell him to come a-running. Tell him a new one’s drifted in from the frontier–and thinks he needs to be shown. Move, you shrimp!”

Before he had finished speaking he had started toward the locker rooms at the rear. Denny he ignored as though he did not exist. He went without a sound in his rubber-soled shoes. Bobby Ogden, waking suddenly from his trancelike condition, leaped to his feet and ran after him. Hogarty halted at the pressure of the boy’s pink-nailed fingers on his arm and wheeled to show a face that was startlingly white and strained.

“Why, you great big kid!” Bobby Ogden flung at him. “You big infant! You’re really sore! Don’t you know he didn’t mean anything. He’s only a kid himself–and you egged him into it!”

“Is he?”

From that gently rising inflection alone Ogden knew that interference was absolutely hopeless.

“Is he? Well, he’s old enough to seem to know what he wants. And he’s going to get it–see? He’s going to get it–and–get–it–good! No man ever flung it into my face that I didn’t give him a chance–not and got away with it.”

Hogarty glanced meaningly down at the restraining hand upon his sleeve and Ogden removed it hastily. He stood in dismayed indecision until the ex-lightweight had disappeared before he turned toward Young Denny, who had been watching in silence his effort at intervention. Denny had not moved. Ogden’s almost girlishly modeled face was more than apprehensive as he stepped up to him.

“He’s mad,” he stated flatly. “You’ve got him peeved for keeps. And I guess you’ve let yourself in for quite a merry little session, too, unless–unless”–he hesitated, peering curiously in Denny’s grave face, “unless you want to make a nice quiet little exit before he comes back with Sutton. You can, you know, and–and it may save you quite a little–er–discomfort in the long run. Sutton–well, the least I can say of Sutton is that he’s inclined to be a trifle rough!”

Ogden saw that slow smile returning; he saw it start far back in the steady eyes and spread until it touched the corners of the other boy’s lips again.

“You mean–leave?” Young Denny asked.

Ogden nodded significantly.

“That’s just what I do mean–only a great deal more so!”

“But I–I couldn’t very well do that now–could I?”

The silk-shirted shoulders shrugged hopelessly.

“Well, since you ask me,” he said, “judging from what I’ve already seen of your methods, I–I’d say most emphatically no. I’ve done all I can when I advise you that now is the one best hour to make your getaway. It wouldn’t be exactly a glorious retreat from the field, but it wouldn’t be so painful, either. Just remember that, will you? I’m to fit you out with some fighting togs, I suppose, if you’ll just come along.”

He turned to follow in the direction which Hogarty had taken, and then paused once more.

“Beg pardon for the omission, Mr. Bolton,” he added, and he smiled boyishly. “My name’s Ogden–Bobby Ogden. Glad to become acquainted with you, I’m sure. And now, if you will follow on, I’ll do my best for you. Would you mind walking on your toes? You see, there are just two things most calculated to get Flash’s goat. One of ’em’s marring up his floor with heavy boots, and the other is butting in when he’s playing dominoes. You couldn’t have known it, of course, but he can’t stand for either of them. And together I am afraid they have got you in pretty bad. You’re sure you can’t swallow your pride, and just beat it quietly while the chance is nice and handy? Maybe you ought to think of your family–no?”

Denny’s smile widened. He shook his head in refusal. He knew he was going to like Ogden–like him for the same reason that he had liked the fat, brown-clad newspaper man in Boltonwood–because of the charming equality of his attitude and the frankness in his eyes.

“No,” he decided, “I–I’m afraid I can’t. I didn’t mean to stir him up so, either, only–only I thought, just for a minute or two, that he was laughing at me. I think I’d rather stay and see it out. But you mustn’t worry about me–I wouldn’t if I were you.”

Again Ogden shrugged resignedly. On tiptoe Denny followed him to the locker-rooms in the rear, and at a word of direction began to remove his clothes. While he plunged head-foremost into a bin in search for a pair of white trunks, Ogden kept up a steady stream of advice calculated to save the other at least a small percentage of punishment.

“Sutton’s big,” he exclaimed jerkily, head out of sight, “but he isn’t fast on his feet. That’s why they call him Boots. He steps around as though he had on waders–hip-high ones. But he’s lightning hitting from close in–in-fighting they call it–where most big fighters don’t shine. That’s because he’s had Flash’s coaching. You want to keep away from him–keep him at arm’s length, and maybe he won’t do too much harm. I–I’d let him do all the leading, if I were you, and–and kind of run ahead of him.” The voice came half-smothered from the cluttered bin of equipment. “That isn’t running away from him because you’re afraid, you understand. It’s just playing him to tire him out, you know!”

It was silent for a moment while Bobby Ogden burrowed for the necessary canvas shoes. Then a hushed laugh broke that quiet and brought the latter bolt upright. With the trunks in one hand and the rubber-soled slippers in the other, Ogden stood and stared, only half understanding that the big boy before him was laughing at him for his solicitude and trying to reassure him with that same mirth.

“Funny, is it?” he snorted aggrievedly. “So very–very–funny? Well, I only hope you’ll be able to laugh that way again–say even in a month or two!”

“I wasn’t laughing at you,” Young Denny told him soberly. “I–I was just thinking how strange it seemed to have somebody worried over me–worried because they were afraid I might get hurt. Most little mix-ups I’ve gone into have worried folks–lest I wouldn’t.”

CHAPTER XIII

When he had first looked up from the green-topped table and seen him standing there in the entrance of the gymnasium Ogden had only sensed the bigness of Denny Bolton’s body–only vaguely felt the promise which his smooth black suit concealed. It was the face that had interested him most at that moment, and yet he had not even noticed the half healed cut that ran almost to the point of the chin. Young Denny’s grave explanation of his quiet mirth caused him to look closer–made him really wonder now what had been its cause. There was a frankly inquisitive question half-formed behind his lips, but when he turned to find Denny sitting stripped to the waist, waiting for the garments which he held in his hands, he merely stood and stared. Bobby Ogden had seen many men stripped for the ring. It took more than an ordinary man to make him look even once–but he could not take his eyes off this boy before him. Once he whistled softly between his teeth in unconcealed amazement; once he walked entirely around him, exclaiming softly to himself. Then he remembered.

“Here, get into these,” he ordered abruptly, and thrust the things into Denny’s waiting hands.

While Denny was obeying he continued to circle and to admire critically.

“Man–man!” he murmured. “But you’re sure put together right!” He was silent for a moment while he punched back and shoulders with a searching thumb. “Silk and steel,” he went on to himself. “And not a lump–not a single knot! Oh, if you only knew how to use it; if you only knew the moves, wouldn’t we give Flash the heart-break of his life! Now wouldn’t we?”

Denny finished lacing his flat shoes and stood erect, and even Ogden’s chattering tongue was silent. It was very easy now to see why that big body had seemed shoulder-heavy. From the shoulder points the lines ran unbroken, almost wedgelike, to his ankles. He was flat and slim in the waist as any stripling might have been. All hint of bulkiness was gone. He seemed almost slender, until one started to analyze each dimension singly, such as the breadth of his back, or the depth of his chest. Then one realized that it was only the slimness of fine-drawn ankles, the swelling smoothness of hidden sinews which created that impression. And Ogden’s quick eye caught that instantly.

“I’d have said one-ninety,” he stated judicially. “At least as much as that, or a shade better, before you undressed. Now I’d put it under–what do you weigh, anyhow?”

He slid the weight over the bar after Young Denny had stepped upon the white scales.

“One sixty-five–sixty-eight–seventy, and a trifle over,” he finished. “Man, but you’re built for speed! You ought to be lightning fast.”

At that instant the boy called Legs opened the door and thrust in his head.

“The chief says if you’re coming at all,” he droned apathetically, “you might just as well come now.”

Ogden threw a long bathrobe over his charge’s shoulders as the latter started forward. He wanted to note the effect which the sudden display of that pair of shoulders and set of back muscles would have upon Flash Hogarty’s temper. As they crossed the long room Denny’s grave lack of concern was made to seem almost stolid in contrast with the heliotrope silk-shirted boy’s excessive nervousness.

“Now remember what I told you,” he whispered hoarsely. “Keep away from him–keep away and let him do the rushing–for he’s got a punch that’s sudden death! You can tire him out. He’s old and his wind is gone.”

The brass rods had been set up in their sockets in the floor and the space which they outlined in the middle of the room roped off and carpeted with a square of hard, brown canvas. The man called Boots Sutton was already in his corner, waiting, and his attitude toward the whole affair was very patently that of sheer boredom. He barely lifted his eyes as Young Denny crawled through the ropes at the opposite corner, behind the officiously fluttering Ogden. This was merely part of his every day’s work; he spent hours each week either instructing frankly confessed amateurs or discouraging too-confident, would-be professionals. It was only because of the strangely venomous harshness with which Hogarty had given him his orders while he was himself dressing that he vouchsafed Denny even that one glance.

“I want you to get him,” Hogarty snarled. “I want you to get him right from the jump–and get him!–and keep on getting him! Either make him squeal–make him quit–or beat him to death!”

But if Sutton failed to note the play of those muscles that bunched and quivered and ran like live things beneath the skin of the boy’s back, when Bobby Ogden threw off the enveloping wrap with an ostentatious flourish and knelt to lace on his gloves, that disclosure was not entirely lost upon Hogarty. Watching from the corners of his eyes, Bobby saw him scowl and chew his lip as his head came forward a little. And immediately he turned to speak again in a whisper to Boots, squatting nonchalantly in his corner.