We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
SHOWMAN
looked as if the match was to be fought out then and there. In two minutes the office was a total wreck and by the time we got them quieted down, Mitchell's purpose was completely accomplished. Corbett and I were so frantic that we'd have fought for nothing. By imposing one and another impossible condition Mitchell and Baird got the side-bet whittled down to $5000 without our even knowing just how they did it. I even bet Mitchell two to one in thousands that he wouldn't dare get into the ring— and had the pleasure of paying him $2000 in cash when he skipped through the ropes at Jacksonville. But I don't grudge it— he was a game little devil and never got another penny out of the fight, since it was on a winner-take-all basis. And, if he'd suggested it, he could have had anything up to half the purse on the quiet.
The best offer we got from a location for the fight came from Jacksonville, Florida. Those times St. Augustine was about the only place in Florida that anybody ever went to. The inhabitants were just starting the build-up which culminated in the late-lamented boom in those parts. Mitchell trained at St. Augustine and we trained at Mayport at the mouth of the St. Johns River. Croquet was the favorite relaxation at our camp. Corbett's most earnest antagonist at this harmless sport was Jack Dempsey— not the present popular restaurateur, but the old "Nonpareil"; the middleweight wonder who had been broken and almost half-witted since his terrific beating from Fitz
124