The Abysmal Brute by Jack London (best books to read for teens .txt) 📖

Once in San Francisco, Sam Stubener’s troubles began. Not that young Pat had a nasty temper, or was grouchy as his father had feared. On the contrary, he was phenomenally sweet and mild. But he was homesick for his beloved mountains. Also, he was secretly appalled by the city, though he trod its roaring streets imperturbable as a red Indian.

“I came down here to fight,” he announced, at the end of the first week.

“Where’s Jim Hanford?”

Stubener whistled.

“A big champion like him wouldn’t look at you,” was his answer. “‘Go and get a reputation,’ is what he’d say.”

“I can lick him.”

“But the public doesn’t know that.

If you licked him you’d be champion of the world, and no champion ever became so with his first fight.”

“I can.”

“But the public doesn’t know it, Pat. It wouldn’t come to see you fight. And it’s the crowd that brings the money and the big purses. That’s why Jim Hanford wouldn’t consider you for a second. There’d be nothing in it for him. Besides, he’s getting three thousand a week right now in vaudeville, with a contract for twenty-five weeks. Do you think he’d chuck that for a go with a man no one ever heard of? You’ve got to do something first, make a record. You’ve got to begin on the little local dubs that nobody ever heard of—guys like Chub Collins, Rough-House Kelly, and the Flying Dutchman. When you’ve put them away, you’re only started on the first round of the ladder. But after that you’ll go up like a balloon.”

“I’ll meet those three named in the same ring one after the other,” was Pat’s decision. “Make the arrangements accordingly.”

Stubener laughed.

“What’s wrong? Don’t you think I can put them away?”

“I know you can,” Stubener assured him. “But it can’t be arranged that way. You’ve got to take them one at a time. Besides, remember, I know the game and I’m managing you. This proposition has to be worked up, and I’m the boy that knows how. “If we’re lucky, you may get to the top in a couple of years and be the champion with a mint of money.”

Pat sighed at the prospect, then brightened up.

“And after that I can retire and go back home to the old man,” he said.

Stubener was about to reply, but checked himself. Strange as was this championship material, he felt confident that when the top was reached it would prove very similar to that of all the others who had gone before. Besides, two years was a long way off, and there was much to be done in the meantime.

When Pat fell to moping around his quarters, reading endless poetry books and novels drawn from the public library, Stubener sent him off to live on a Contra Costa ranch across the Bay, under the watchful eye of Spider Walsh. At the end of a week Spider whispered that the job was a cinch. His charge was away and over the hills from dawn till dark, whipping the streams for trout, shooting quail and rabbits, and pursuing the one lone and crafty buck famous for having survived a decade of hunters. It was the Spider who waxed lazy and fat, while his charge kept himself in condition.

As Stubener expected, his unknown was laughed at by the fight club managers. Were not the woods full of unknowns who were always breaking out with championship rashes? A preliminary, say of four rounds—yes, they would grant him that. But the main event—never. Stubener was resolved that young Pat should make his début in nothing less than a main event, and, by the prestige of his own name he at last managed it. With much misgiving, the Mission Club agreed that Pat Glendon could go fifteen rounds with Rough-House Kelly for a purse of one hundred dollars. It was the custom of young fighters to assume the names of old ring heroes, so no one suspected that he was the son of the great Pat Glendon, while Stubener held his peace. It was a good press surprise package to spring later.

Came the night of the fight, after a month of waiting. Stubener’s anxiety was keen. His professional reputation was staked that his man would make a showing, and he was astounded to see Pat, seated in his corner a bare five minutes, lose the healthy color from his cheeks, which turned a sickly yellow.

“Cheer up, boy,” Stubener said, slapping him on the shoulder. “The first time in the ring is always strange, and Kelly has a way of letting his opponent wait for him on the chance of getting stage-fright.”

“It isn’t that,” Pat answered. “It’s the tobacco smoke. I’m not used to it, and it’s making me fair sick.”

His manager experienced the quick shock of relief. A man who turned sick from mental causes, even if he were a Samson, could never win to place in the prize ring. As for tobacco smoke, the youngster would have to get used to it, that was all.

Young Pat’s entrance into the ring had been met with silence, but when Rough-House Kelly crawled through the ropes his greeting was uproarious. He did not belie his name. he was a ferocious-looking man, black and hairy, with huge, knotty muscles, weighing a full two hundred pounds. Pat looked across at him curiously, and received a savage scowl. After both had been introduced to the audience, they shook hands. And even as their gloves gripped, Kelly ground his teeth, convulsed his face with an expression of rage, and muttered:

“You’ve got yer nerve wid yeh.” He flung Pat’s hand roughly from his, and hissed, “I’ll eat yeh up, ye pup!”

The audience laughed at the action, and it guessed hilariously at what Kelly must have said.

Back in his corner, and waiting the gong, Pat turned to Stubener.

“Why is he angry with me?” he asked.

He ain’t,” Stubener answered. That’s his way, trying to scare you. It’s just mouth-fighting.”

“It isn’t boxing,” was Pat’s comment; and Stubener, with a quick glance, noted that his eyes were as mildly blue as ever.

“Be careful,” the manager warned, as the gong for the first round sounded and Pat stood up. “He’s liable to come at you like a man-eater.”

And like a man-eater Kelly did come at him, rushing across the ring in wild fury. Pat, who in his easy way had advanced only a couple of paces, gauged the other’s momentum, sidestepped, and brought his stiff-arched right across to the jaw. Then he stood and looked on with a great curiosity. The fight was over. Kelly had fallen like a stricken bullock to the floor, and there he lay without movement while the referee, bending over him, shouted the ten seconds in his unheeding ear. When Kelly’s seconds came to lift him, Pat was before them. Gathering the huge, inert bulk of the man in his arms, he carried him to his corner and deposited him on the stool and in the arms of his seconds.

Half a minute later, Kelly’s head lifted and his eyes wavered open. He looked about him stupidly and then to one of his seconds.

“What happened?” he queried hoarsely. “Did the roof fall on me?”