Short Fiction O. Henry (comprehension books TXT) 📖

“Well, sir, after I had got out of the business, I got a mighty grouch on. I used to go round town licking private citizens and all kinds of unprofessionals just to please myself. I’d lick cops in dark streets and car-conductors and cabdrivers and draymen whenever I could start a row with ’em. It didn’t make any difference how big they were, or how much science they had, I got away with ’em. If I’d only just have had the confidence in the ring that I had beating up the best men outside of it, I’d be wearing black pearls and heliotrope silk socks today.

“One evening I was walking along near the Bowery, thinking about things, when along comes a slumming-party. About six or seven they was, all in swallowtails, and these silk hats that don’t shine. One of the gang kind of shoves me off the sidewalk. I hadn’t had a scrap in three days, and I just says, ‘Delight-ed!’ and hits him back of the ear.

“Well, we had it. That Johnnie put up as decent a little fight as you’d want to see in the moving pictures. It was on a side street, and no cops around. The other guy had a lot of science, but it only took me about six minutes to lay him out.

“Some of the swallowtails dragged him up against some steps and began to fan him. Another one of ’em comes over to me and says:

“ ‘Young man, do you know what you’ve done?’

“ ‘Oh, beat it,’ says I. ‘I’ve done nothing but a little punching-bag work. Take Freddy back to Yale and tell him to quit studying sociology on the wrong side of the sidewalk.’

“ ‘My good fellow,’ says he, ‘I don’t know who you are, but I’d like to. You’ve knocked out Reddy Burns, the champion middleweight of the world! He came to New York yesterday, to try to get a match on with Jim Jeffries. If you⁠—’

“But when I come out of my faint I was laying on the floor in a drugstore saturated with aromatic spirits of ammonia. If I’d known that was Reddy Burns, I’d have got down in the gutter and crawled past him instead of handing him one like I did. Why, if I’d ever been in a ring and seen him climbing over the ropes, I’d have been all to the sal-volatile.

“So that’s what imagination does,” concluded Mack. “And, as I said, your case and mine is simultaneous. You’ll never win out. You can’t go up against the professionals. I tell you, it’s a park bench for yours in this romance business.”

Mack, the pessimist, laughed harshly.

“I’m afraid I don’t see the parallel,” I said, coldly. “I have only a very slight acquaintance with the prize-ring.”

The derelict touched my sleeve with his forefinger, for emphasis, as he explained his parable.

“Every man,” said he, with some dignity, “has got his lamps on something that looks good to him. With you, it’s this dame that you’re afraid to say your say to. With me, it was to win out in the ring. Well, you’ll lose just like I did.”

“Why do you think I shall lose?” I asked warmly.

“ ’Cause,” said he, “you’re afraid to go in the ring. You dassen’t stand up before a professional. Your case and mine is just the same. You’re a amateur; and that means that you’d better keep outside of the ropes.”

“Well, I must be going,” I said, rising and looking with elaborate care at my watch.

When I was twenty feet away the park-bencher called to me.

“Much obliged for the dollar,” he said. “And for the dime. But you’ll never get ’er. You’re in the amateur class.”

“Serves you right,” I said to myself, “for hobnobbing with a tramp. His impudence!”

But, as I walked, his words seemed to repeat themselves over and over again in my brain. I think I even grew angry at the man.

“I’ll show him!” I finally said, aloud. “I’ll show him that I can fight Reddy Burns, too⁠—even knowing who he is.”

I hurried to a telephone-booth and rang up the Telfair residence.

A soft, sweet voice answered. Didn’t I know that voice? My hand holding the receiver shook.

“Is that you?” said I, employing the foolish words that form the vocabulary of every talker through the telephone.

“Yes, this is I,” came back the answer in the low, clear-cut tones that are an inheritance of the Telfairs. “Who is it, please?”

“It’s me,” said I, less ungrammatically than egotistically. “It’s me, and I’ve got a few things that I want to say to you right now and immediately and straight to the point.”

“Dear me,” said the voice. “Oh, it’s you, Mr. Arden!”

I wondered if any accent on the first word was intended; Mildred was fine at saying things that you had to study out afterward.

“Yes,” said I. “I hope so. And now to come down to brass tacks.” I thought that rather a vernacularism, if there is such a word, as soon as I had said it; but I didn’t stop to apologize. “You know, of course, that I love you, and that I have been in that idiotic state for a long time. I don’t want any more foolishness about it⁠—that is, I mean I want an answer from you right now. Will you marry me or not? Hold the wire, please. Keep out, Central. Hello, hello! Will you, or will you not?”

That was just the uppercut for Reddy Burns’ chin. The answer came back:

“Why, Phil, dear, of course I will! I didn’t know that you⁠—that is, you never said⁠—oh, come up to the house, please⁠—I can’t say what I want to over the phone. You are so importunate. But please come up to the house, won’t you?”

Would I?

I rang the bell of the Telfair house violently. Some sort of a human came to the door and shooed me into the drawing-room.

“Oh, well,” said I to myself, looking at the ceiling, “anyone can learn from anyone. That was