Winner Take All

"So you been followin' the papers, Mr. Blair," chanted Devereau. Having struck this vein of satire and found it rich he followed it up. "Full of lovely reading these days, now aren't they?"

That was not so; not as it was meant. Perry had found the columns devoted to himself singularly flat and devoid of interest. There was only one item, in fact, which never failed. Only one which he always read, the daily quotation on livestock. But he kept quiet. His eyes alone were attentive.

"So you've been reading the papers!" Mincingly Devereau went back and picked it up. "Well-well! Ha-ha!" But hard after came again that half-blind, half-incoherent rage.

"Listen, now, you! You listen! Listen, and I'll give you an interview that's never been put on any press."

And he gave it to him, briefly, coldly. He repeated substantially what the carpers had said at the time Perry won the title.

"Champion?" he said. "Sure—because I made you champion. Because Fanchette wouldn't a'stepped into the ring with Jimmy Montague, or Jigger Holliday; no, nor even old Kid Fall. I know, believe me I know, because I tried him with all of 'em. Not for the purse that was offered. He wasn't looking to commit suicide at bargain prices.

"But you? He'd take a chance on you. Sure he would. Who the hell was Perry Blair, anyway? He knew that Montague'd cut him to pieces. Holliday'd have tore off his lid. So I swung him to you.

"And why? Because I thought you'd listen to reason. Oh, you don't believe it. Ask Dunham. Are you still such a hick that you don't know he was behind that match? Why, he's behind 'em all—nine tenths of 'em. His bankroll is."

"Whose right hand was it put Fanchette but?" asked Perry mildly.

"Pah!" slurred Devereau. "Pah! I coulda done it myself."

But Blair's quietness fooled him.

"I'm not saying that it wasn't convincing." He thought it time to placate. "It was neat. I've gave you credit. Sure! You looked great. You looked like a world-beater, in there against Fanchette. But that's just what I'm trying to get at. Oh, Dunham and I talked it over before anybody in this burg knew you were alive. That's what I'm trying to get at. You been crabbin' your own act; you been making it hard for yourself. You gotta play it up now. You gotta work different.

"Nowadays a champ has just two outs. He's got to be a glad hand artist, or a bruiser. That covers it. He's either got to be so popular that they don't care much who he fights, so long as he's a good showman, or he's got to take them all on as they come. All the hard ones, and the harder the better, till one of 'em puts him to sleep."

Devereau's voice acquired a whine, the plaintive note of a man whose sincere best efforts have gone unappreciated.

"And I had it all figured out. I been doing all the headwork for you. I figured how we'd sidestep Montague and Holliday—all the tough birds—just as long as we could stall 'em off. And pick up a nice piece of change. Your share'd be enough so's you'd not need to worry. And we'd made a great start. They were dead sick of Fanchette. The papers were wild for somebody new. And they put you over better'n we could have done it ourselves.

"But you gotta work different. They liked you at first. They ain't so dead sure they give a damn about you now. You gotta be a good boy. More of a mixer. The crowd has been waitin' a long time for you to loosen up and slip 'em a piece of news that can be cashed. And they're getting sulky. A'course that's my fault too. I admit it. But it couldn't be helped. There wasn't much you coulda tipped 'em off to, but you shoulda stalled 'em along. You should have promised 'em something when the time was right. But it's right now, now that you're matched with Hughie. You can tell 'em just how to get aboard. It's time, before some of 'em get good and sore, and begin to holler for you to meet Montague."

"I can whip Montague," said Perry. "Holliday I'm not so sure of. But Montague I can whip, the best day he ever stood in shoes."

It maddened Devereau again. Just when he was beginning to congratulate himself that his work was good.

"You can't lick him," he choked. "You couldn't lick him even if he was handcuffed and shackled to a ball and chain." He tossed aloft his arms.

"Champion! You, champion! Oh, my Gawd!"

He strode across the room. But he came back swiftly to the boy who had not moved in his chair.

"Get this now!" he barked. He was done with talk. Done with argument.

"Get this, because when I'm finished this time, I'm through. I've got my coin in this thing and so has Dunham. And we're going to drag down what we put in with a little something for interest. We're going to get ours, and then you can fight Montague and be damned—or Holliday. You can go throw your nice new title into the gutter as soon as you please, for all of me, and try being first prize sucker of the world for a change. But first I get mine. How I hate a fool!"

"You're fighting Hughie Gay a week from Saturday. All right. Hughie's a set-up. I saw to that. You can pick 'em yourself hereafter. But right now your orders is to let Hughie stay the distance. A week from Saturday. Is that clear? Have you got that—sure?"

Blair sat silent. It is strange how silence will fool a man like Devereau. He made one last try for peace.

"And if you behave; if you're a good boy maybe we're going to forget we had this little misunderstanding. There's others besides Hughie just as soft. But if you're dead set on finding out who is boss; if you want to know whether you're Dunham's man or not, why just cross them orders. Pig-iron's got ten thousand on that fight—ten thousand that you don't win by a knock-out, if you win at all. And if you cost him that ten—Well, just dump it, if you want to see!"

"I fight on the level," said Perry, "or I don't fight at all."

"Then you don't fight at all," said Devereau.

Blair held him a long time with an eye that was chill. His voice was quieter than before, if that were possible.

"I have sat here and taken talk from you, you vermin, that I'd take from no man, because I could figure no other way. They know, downstairs, that you are up here with me. If I kill you they will hang me, and I do not choose to hang for one like you. If I laid a finger on you, that would be assault, and you and your friends would swear me into jail. That would be high card for you. It would fill your hand. So I must sit here idle. But some day, maybe, I'm going to come upon you with no circumstances to hinder. And if I do I'm going to change you. You do not please me, as you are. Some day I hope to alter you so that you will be a curio, even to your own best friends.… Get out!"

The chill eye had frightened Devereau. It heartened him to hear that he was safe.

"We'll put you out on the street," he snarled. "You'll be standing on a corner, wondering what it's all about!"

"Get out!"

Devereau got.

CHAPTER VI

FELICITY CROSSES BROADWAY

And Perry Blair had wanted to see. He hadn't listened to reason. He hadn't been a good boy. His bout with Gay was a repetition of that with Fanchette, the former title-holder. A brief half minute of boxing, a feint—and Gay on the canvas for the count of ten.

He had wanted to see. He had been consumed with desire to see. And it had happened quickly.

The victory failed to raise a second wave of adulation, even a ripple, in fact. Instead it was received oddly with scarcely any comment at all. Even the papers had but little to say, and that little noncommittal. For there were rumors. Devereau and Pig-iron Dunham had done some preliminary work in anticipation of the worst. And after the worst had come to be they went to work in earnest.

It was Devereau, Blair's own manager—ex-manager, the day after the Gay bout—who gave out the interview announcing the severance of business relations with the champion. There were reasons, he said, but he was not explicit. He left them veiled at first, purposely obscure.

What was the use of discussing it? Blair was a fluke champion anyway. Everybody knew that. Chance had made him, chance which had been luckless for Jimmy Montague. Montague, he said, had been selected as the logical man to meet Fanchette, the man whose record entitled him to the choice, long before any word of the proposed match had been given to the public. But Fanchette, after his prolonged inactivity, had demurred at meeting, immediately, so formidable an opponent. So they had selected Blair, merely as a work-out for the title-holder. And the unforeseen had happened. Fanchette had proved to be through. Anyone—anyone could have whipped him.

But what about Gay? That was the natural question and they asked it. Blair had disposed of him, also in the first round.

But to that Devereau made no answer, no verbal answer, at least. He did not point out that Hughie was a set-up, a second-rater. No, indeed. He shrugged his shoulders—shrugged them almost audibly.

"I had nothing to do with it," he said. "Absolutely. Ask Blair about it. I've quit him."

Pig-iron Dunham, who paid the bills, and Devereau who was cunning, did just what the latter had promised they would do. In a few short months they put Perry Blair, light-weight champion of the world, out on the sidewalk.

It can't be done? It is done every day, in politics. It needs only a practiced hand.

For a day or two following Devereau's unsatisfactory laconism nothing developed. And then a bombshell exploded. Hughie Gay made a statement. He took oath, solemn oath (and cheap, too, for it cost Dunham but two hundred dollars), that he had sold out. Blair had realized that he was no champion; he had feared even him, Gay. So before the fight Blair had paid him well to throw it. And he had done so.

Thus, you see, they learned logically why Devereau had quit Perry. Devereau was square. Sure! This proved it. You said it! They understood perfectly those eloquent shoulder shrugs now. And they raised a righteous clamor. Perry Blair denied the charge, and offered to meet Gay again, anywhere, for any charity. And they replied, with equal logic, that every reputable club in the country should bar him thenceforth.

In a short interview, not as unsatisfactory as Devereau's, Pig-iron Dunham broke a rule and talked for publication.

"It is the sort of thing which has given a bad name to a clean and manly sport in this state," he said. "I sincerely trust, however, that all true lovers of the squared circle will put the blame where it belongs."