Boy's Cinema (1930-31)

Kid, looking up for the first time, shot an appealing glance at him. "Are you—dropi)in' me, Geoige?" he moaned. "Not me!" said Regan. "You're givin' me the gate. Well, why shoiddn't j-ou, since you've got yovu' own s^ystem ? Listen! I asked you to go in there to-night and lay low—let Petrelli play liim.self out—bo.\ him. An' what did you do ? Tried to knock liim down for the count the minute the bell rang. Left yourself wide open, played into his hands!" The Kid bit his lip. "George, I—I started to fight like you told me," he faltered. "I tried— but I had somethin' else on my mind. 1 needed that dough, George. I hud to be on the big end of the purse." Regan glared at him. "Rose!"' he ground out. "Didn't I know it? Say, if you're in this fight game just to get enough money for that wife of yours, it's about time you knew that she ' He checked himself and made a hopeless gestuie. "Oh, what's the use?" he added sourly, and walked on to the door. On the threshold he turned. "Good luck to you," he said, liis voice curt. Then, rimning his eye over the Kid's bruised body: "An' put on your robe," he snapped. "Do you wanna catch pneiunonia?" The door slammed behind him. He was gone. The Break. TWO girls who looke<l as if tliey had stepped straight off the vaudeville stage were perched on a couple of liigh stools at a soda counter. They were flashily-dressed, and heavily rouged and powdere<l. One of them, a brunette, wa.s doing most of the talking, and the other girl was the subject of her conversation, a eonver.sation into which she had drawn I he burly bartender of the "soft drink " emporium. "She got fair warning from me," the brunette declared. "1 .said, 'Rose, don't niarry a fighter.' Didn't I say that to you, Rose?" The other girl was staring resentfully into space. Her face was beautiful, but far from i)leasing. Her eyes were hard and calculating, her lips seemed too ready to sneer, or pout into an expres- sion of peevishness. "She was right, Mrs. Mason," put in the bartender, vouching for the sagacity of the brunette's remarks. "It's like she says. The fight game's a pretty tough racket. Everything goes along dandy for a while. Then—wham! Nobo<ly ain't got no more use fer you. Now Kid Mason's all right. He's a l)retty good scrapper, but—— " The brunette interrupted him reminis- cent ly. " There we were on the stage like a couple of angels," she .said disgustedly. "Then Rose jumps the act and marries the Kid. An(l why? 'Cause she thought lighters made a lotta dough. That's why!" Rose Mason spoke for the first time. "All right," she snapped. "Lace it into me! I did it! I'm the sap!" She .slipped off the stool and walked out into the street. A bus took her to the very entrance of the humble apart- mcnt-hovise in which the Kid lented a flat. She climbed to the thiixl floor, let herself into the suite aiul foun<l the Kid already home, sitting haggardly in an armchair in the living-room. He l()ok({l up, and conjuied up a lue- ful smile that only made his battcn-d face .so<>m (he more pitiful. "1—I guess I don t look so good, do July mil, 19.'!l. BOY'S CINEMA I?" he murmured. "I—I went after him too fast. I kinda had a hunch that I could lick him before he got into his stride. I guess I guessed wrong ■" Her eyes flashed contempt, and her lip curled cruelly. " So did I—guess wrong," she sneered. "I guessed I'd be wearing that fur coat you've been shooting oif your head about. And I guessed we'd be moving out of this hole we're living in now. Wasn't I a mutt ?" " You'll get your fur coat. Rose," he said huskilj'. "Sure," she retorted. "If I go out and shoot a couple of cirts!" The Kid rose to his feet and pressed one fist into the palm of his other hand nervously. He seemed shaken mentally as well as physically. "It was my own fault," he groaned. " I didn't fight the way George told me. And now he's through with me " "Oh, him!" Rose cut in fiercely. "You should have been through with him years ago. You doing all the dirty work while Regan sat back and grabbed his fifty per cent I" "He didn't take it most of the tim^e," the Kid answered stoutly. "Not when we needed the money at home. George has been my beat friend all along, and he gave up a lot for us." Her glance scathed him. "He gave up a lot?" she blazed. " Wliat did I give up when I married you? Oh, you make me tired! I'm finished with you!" She walked through to the bed-room. The door closed behind her with a bang, and a key turned in the lock as the Kid tried to follow her. "Rose!" he cried. "Honey " Her curt voice reached his ears. "I'm packin' my bag!" she said. "I'm Icavin' " Fifty minutes later the Kid took a cab to Regan's rooms down-town. He found George Regan with Jeff and two or three other men. They were playing cards, but there was a pause in the game as Kid Mason entered, and an awkward silence fell. " George," the Kid said hoarsely, "I've got to see you." Regan's face was expressionless. "I got nothin' to talk to you about," he answered shortly. "George," the Kid pleaded, "it's important." Regan looked up at him. There was something in the youngster's eyes that might have softened a harder man than big-hearted George Regan, and, some- how, he could not forget the friendship that had existed between them for so many years. "In the bed-room," he said, not with- out .some reluctance, and as the Kid made his way into the other apartment, Regan lo^e and followed him. " Well '!" the fight manager asked, closing the door. " Rose has gone," tlie Kid told him shakily. " She—left me. Aw, I know what you're gonna say. George! But don't call her no names." Regan's good-looking face was like granite, and his lips were a thin, firm line. But this eventuality was only something that he might have expected oi a woman for whom he had never had iuiy regard. ilo laid a hand on the Kid's shoulder as he saw the grief that was written on the youngster's features. "It's happened to a lot of other guys," ho muttered. " Forget her." And he added, somewhat cryptically: "You don't know it yet, but you needed this!" The Kid drew his hand dazedly aci-oss his forehead. "It's all happened so sudden!" he moaned. "I don't know what to do." Every Tuesday "You're gonna get to bed and get .some sleep," George told him. "That's v.hat you're gonna do." "George, I can't go back there!" the Kid blurted, and at that Regan's grasp on his shoulder tightened in an eloquent token of friendship and sympathy. The woman Rose had left the Kid in the lurch. He was not going to abandon him now. " Of course you can't go back there," he said. "You're gonna stay right here with me. Now hit the hay. Go on!" The Road to Fame. THE hall was packed with a yelling crowd of fight fans. The arc-lights, concentrating their glare on the ring, threw into vivid relief the two men circling and feinting between the ropes. It was a noteworthy contest—for Kid Mason a stepping-stone to further re- cognition as a coming world-beater. A dusky Filipino was his opponent, a tear-away fighter with a notorious right. The Kid boxed him guardedly for three rounds, standing on the defensive, baffling that vicious, lightning-like hook with side-step and parry. His footwork was a delight to bf;nold, his ringcraft a wonder to the eyes of the true connoisseurs of the prize- fighting art. There were others among the crowd who had paid for seats in the hope of seeing battle and blood- shed, and who appreciated a fierce ex- change of blows more than they appreciated skill. But for these, too, the fight was to become momentous. The bell clanged for the fourth round, and marked a change in the Kid's tactics. He had the measure of the Filipino now, and, back in the corner during his "breather," Regan had_ whispered words of shrewd counsel. The Kid danced into his man with both hands at the sound of the gong. A crisp left jarred the Filipino, and a six-inch jolt with the right rocked him to the heels. They were the first two blows of a fistic hurricane that piled the Islander against the ropes and then drove him to his knees. The Kid sprang back as the referee began to count. The Filipino seemed to be in a bad way, but, playing for time, he rose on the word "nine " and .sprang at the Kid. A punch that pierced his guard staggered young Mason, but he fought back and overwhelmed his man, the crowd howling encouragement. The bell saved the Filipino, but it could not save him midway through the next round, when the Kid sent his glove crashing to the jaw and stretched him for the full count. Next morning the headlines were blazoning the result across the sporting columns of the newspapers. "KID MASON WINS BY KNOCK- OUT ROUTE." tlEORGE REGAN'S WONDER BOY SCORES FOURTH STRAIGHT ' KAYO.' " It was this victory which led to articles being signed for a contest with Prince I'earl, that being the high- faluting title of an Alabama nigger with a formidable reputation in the first ranks of the prizefigliters, and a day or two after ho had gone into more or less serious training the Kid may have been seen in the gymnasium at Regan's quarters. Regan, sat at a table and played solitaire, but his attention was divided between the cards and the youngster who was working off a few pounds of superfluous weight at the other end of the gym. The Kid was busy at the pnnching-bag, and the thud of his fists lamming into it, together with the