Trooper Tales — page 66: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

58 Toreador, the Game One. back to his little room in the poorest and shabbiest of all the poverty shacks in the district. Then he would di- vide the cocoanut sweets with Toreador, telling the game one all the while how wonderfully sweet and pretty was the maiden whom he gazed at so long every Sunday. Now, Toreador had blood in his veins as blue as the ocean at night. He was only a baby bird, but his race dated back to the time when Castilians ruled the world and owned most of it. Toreador was the scion of the gamest fighting stock ever pitted in that land of fair seno- ritas and fancy cocks. Toreador had gaffs as sharp as a surgeon’s lance and as tough as ivory. Muscles were on his body as hard as steel nails. He had a wicked beak and a long, thick neck—a typical fighting neck, and brownish black eyes so bright that they shone like elec- tric sparks. Toreador’s father was a champion of other days. Everybody for miles around Corizel knew the record and pedigree of this bird, and everybody envied the rich Spanish planter who owned him, because many were the pesos which the gamecock piled up for him every Sun- day. Now Benito had seen the doughty chicken’s last fight, after he had laid low five other birds in two hours. He was fighting in the dark, for the spark had run out of both his eyes. And no one was sadder than Benito ' when the great battle was over and the head of Torea- dor’s splendid sire dropped into the dust of the pit and rested there. The mother of Benito’s bird was as trim and fancy a Comichdooks (S@)