Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 159: what you’re looking at

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

OL’ MURPH—PRELIM BOY. his full fighting name, and then you may find a ‘“‘ young ” or something tacked onto it making the “ beware of imitations ” rule apply. ‘““ Nobody but poor OV’ Kid Murphy from Pueblo! You. knew Murph?” Calamity pleaded. ‘Poor Old’s right,” I conceded. ‘“ He was beginning to slip five or six years ago. What’s the old man doing down here? He ought to be spading the garden up at -Pueblo—he must be thirty-three or four by now.” ‘Yes, but he ain’t clear gone yet—he’s been grabbin’ off a bout now and then. f had him and ‘Two Round’ Gutierrez booked for the curtain raiser here.” “For the cutain raiser! Hell’s fire! Kid Murph from Pueblo isn’t fighting curtain raisers, is he?’ It had only been a few years since I’d seen Murph slap the ears off Punch Nixon and then only get a draw with him—the luckiest and yellowist dumb- bell that ever copped the welterweight belt by a fluke and held it by a series of rotten decisions. ‘“ 'They’s a lot of pretty good prelim boys nowadays,” Calamity reminded me. “ But I been gettin’ Ol Murph a few scraps lately. His old woman ain’t feelin’ good, and then they got a kid what fell outa the cradle an’ got curv’ture of the spine or some such— an’ now they’ve gone an’ jugged him, an’ when I went to see the chief of police, thinkin’ mayhaps I could do something, he balls me out from hell to breakfast an’ says if I said another word he’d throw me in fer bein’ a vag—which I ain’t.” ‘What did they pick him up for?” “Oh, nothing much,” and I saw right there that Calamity intended to lie about it. ‘ You know OI’ Murph,” he continued. “ He wouldn’t hurt a baby—but of course he’s always pulling off some fool stunt. “He come in last night on a freight an’ I put him up at the hotel an’ told him to step out and do his road work at five o’clock this morning. His leg cords is get- tin’ sort of tight. Well, he started out from the hotel—wasn’t wearin’ much but trunks and three or four sweaters. The boob, he ain’t néver been here before, an’ he picks the main stem to perambulate down. 149 ‘“ Passin’ a restaurant, he decides to stop in an’ have a quart of hot water an’ a glass of milk. It was the milk that got him in bad. O’ course, not havin’ on no clothes to speak of, he didn’t have no money with him, an’ while he was tryin’ to explain to the waiter a cop drifts in and, o’ course, Ol’ Murph, bein’ peaceful like as far as dis- position goes, walks right down to the sta- tion with the cop an’ they throws him down the hole.” ‘Are you sure that’s all there was to itp” “Well, now, that’s the way I got the story,” Calamity claimed. ‘“ You know flat-foots is down on pugs as though they was poison in this town—’specially the chief.” I admitted that, but I had doubts about the rest of the story. Knowing Murph, I had misgivings about what happened at the restaurant, but Calamity kept whining around the office until it was a case of go over to headquarters and see the chief or go crazy. JI chose the former, feeling { was already making too much progyess on the latter route. As we opened the chief’s door at the city hall, a string of cuss words flew out of his private office that would have floored any heavyweight in the world. The chief was slinging them. Feeling that we’d picked a poor time for the interview, I tried to back out, but he’d seen me. “Come in, Four Eyes,” he said, “ and leave the door open.” Then he turned his attention back to a couple of the jailiest looking birds I’d lamped in an age. ‘““ Now you two beat it before I throw your pants back in jail,” he yelled at them. “You can’t threaten me and get away with it. I know you’re the birds that threw those bombs down at the shops, even if I couldn’t stick it onto you——and don’t you ever think I don’t! You can’t come in here telling me! I’m giving you half an hour to get out of El Paso, and take it from me, the boys ‘Il sure be looking for you when the time’s up. Now beat it.” The two yeggs shifted uneasily. “You'll be mighty sorry of the day you ever sent us up,” one of them mumbled. CORMICLOOOKS: (S@