"Come here," he said, in the same husky whisper, but with a noticeable increase of vigor and self-command. "Come here, I wanter tellyerboutit."
Phyllis crouched by his side, so dejected and heartsick that it was well for him she hid her face.
"I was with Morty Stokes and a whole lot of them," he went on, his words running together tipsily. "Tagging on, too, you know--royal, open-handed fellow, Morty, good fren’ of mine, always something to eat--gives bell-boy tip that would keep us for a week. And it was down at the Queensbury Club, pay ten dollars, and, member--one-day member, you know--though the fight we went to see was tipped off--wasn’t any, you know--but we stayed on, Morty opening champagne, and Kid Kelly was there who beat Cyclone Crandall last month; and somehow Morty and the Kid got into a row about Tammany corruption, and both so blind that neither of them could have spelled Tammany for a million, and everybody had to pull them apart. Then Morty, just blazing said: ’I can’t lick you, but here’s a fellow that can,’ and he pointed at me, and says, ’Cyril, I’ll give you five hundred dollars to wipe this dirty loafer off the map!’ And I took it as a joke, and said yes I would, and before I knew it they were appointing a referee, and Kid Kelly was stripping down to the skin."
Adair stopped and laughed--a groaning kind of laugh, as mirthless as the wind that rattled the window-panes. "He had only been out of training ten days, and as for my standing up against him he might have been Battling Nelson. But it suddenly came into my head, why here’s a chance to make something--not Morty’s five hundred dollars for licking him--I’d only drunk half a glass of wine, and knew better--but a bit at the other end of it; and so I said, yes, four hundred for the winner, and a hundred for the man out, and all as insultingly as I could make it, as though that hundred was for the Kid instead of me. And finally, when it was all settled, it all wasn’t--Morty standing out for two ounce gloves, and the others for sixes, he saying he wanted to mark the dirty mutt with something to stay; and that it was to be two ounces or nothing, though what was to happen to me in the mix-up wasn’t mentioned, the fact being he didn’t care as long as he could see the Kid pounded; and it was two shakes the Kid didn’t pound _him_, it all worked up to such a hullabaloo, with some of them holding him, and others the Kid, and all of them yelling at once till at last they shoved us into the ring, with Tom Hallahan for referee, and Billy Sands holding the stakes and keeping time, and then we shook hands and squared off.