Pulp Fiction, 1943 · page 47 of 100
12 Sports Aces, May 1943 — page 47: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains story prose from "The Punch Professor," a pulp fiction narrative. The text depicts a confrontation between Mathew Rourke Brian, a young college professor, and Battler Alders, a aggressive man who bumps into him on a staircase landing. After Alders insults and throws a punch at Brian, the professor instinctively delivers a powerful uppercut that knocks Alders down, an action captured by photographer Tim McCarty's flash camera. The scene shows Brian's surprised realization of what he's done as Alders recovers and recognizes his attacker.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
THE PUNCH PROFESSOR 45 toward the steps and the other with a camera slung over his shoulder followed. As Mathew Rourke Brian reached the broad landing at the top, the man without the camera crashed full tilt into him. The young professor staggered back- wards off-balance, barely saved himself from tumbling down the steps. “Watch where you’re goin’,” a voice snarled. Mathew Rourke Brian jerked startled gaze to the man who had bumped him. He looked into a scowling face that was cruel and vicious. He was about the same build as the young professor and wore a tweed suit that probably cost twice as much as the forty dollar ready-to-wear tweeds Brian wore, yet he didn’t look right. The suit was well cut enough, but it just didn’t fit psychologically. For a second’s fraction quick anger flared in the depths of Brian’s brown eyes. The fellow had a nerve, barging into a man, then intimating that he was the aggrieved party. Then Brian remem- bered that he was Dr. Mathew Rourke Brian, almost a professor. College pro- fessors didn’t lose their tempers and get involved in public brawls. “T beg your pardon,” he said quietly. “I’m sure I didn’t mean to—” “What's that you say!” The man who had bumped into Brian talked in a loud voice. He glowered at the professor. “Lis- ten, bozo, you ain’t gettin’ away with talk like that. You’re pokin’ your nose out for a biff and you’re gonna get it. Perfesser or whatever, you can’t talk like that!” Mathew Rourke Brian stared at the man in puzzled amazement. Was the fel- low mad? “T don’t understand, sir. I merely said I beg your—” “No dirty Nazi so-and-so talks like that to Battler Alders! You asked for it!” Contemptuously, casually, Battler Al- ders jabbed out with a straight left to Brian’s face. It didn’t land. Instinctively the young professor jerked his head aside and the Battler’s fist whizzed harmlessly past Brian’s ear. Mathew Rourke Brian didn’t plan the next sequence of the crazy scene. After- ward, except for the high-speed lens of a press photographer’s camera, he would have denied that he actually did what the picture Tim McCarty showed him proved, The follow-through of Battler Alders’ left jab carried him into Brian. Without conscious volition, as though a deep-root- ed instinct caused him to do the perfect. thing, Mathew Rourke Brian cracked a right uppercut to Alders’ face. The blow travelled less than a foot. _ Whomp! Brian’s fist crunched through flesh to bone. The Battler’s head snapped back and the power of that paralyzing jolt to his jaw staggered him. An odd disbelief flickered briefly in the dark eyes of Battler Alders, then a glassy haze veiled the orbs. He swayed, nearly retained his balance, then half-pitched, half-stumbled to the cement of the landing. Mathew Rourke Brian was dimly aware that 3 flash-bulb flared. The second man with Alders was feverishly screwing an- other bulb into his holder, “Boy, what a wallop!” he mumbled. “What a picture! Nineteen pugs can’t dump the Battier off his pins, and this college-looking guy scythes ’im with one sock! What a shot!” Tim McCarty, ex-pug himself, ex- sports writer, and now press cameraman for the Ruxford Chronicle, dashed around Brian and the sprawled Alders and an- other flash-bulb flared. Battler Alders was dazed plenty. He got to one knee and shook his head like a wet puppy. Some of the fog must have cleared. He looked up at Mathew Rourke Brian and abruptly full comprehension came into the Battler’s eyes. He scram- bled erect. “Why, you dirty Nazi—!” Filthy curses poured from Battler Alders. His face was a snarling fury. “Bust me when I ain’t lookin’. huh! Okay, you’re lookin’ tor trouble and you’re gonna get it!” *Are you mad, man! I am not loeking _for trouble. I did not hit you when—” STINGING, twisting jab from Bat- tler Alders slapped against the side of his face and broke off the proefessor’s . protest. This time there was nothing cas- ual or contemptuous abeut Alders. A cGomicbooks COr