"you've broke into a new class. Now you've got to make
good."

And how do you s'pose I begins? Why, I hires one of these open faced
cabs by the hour, and tells the chap up top to take me up Fifth ave. I
wanted to think, and there ain't any better place for brain exercise
than leanin' back in a hansom, squintin' out over the foldin' doors. I'd
got pretty near up to the Plaza before I hooks what I was fishin'
after. It came sudden, too.

It was like this: Whilst I was sparrin' secretary to the Boss I'd met up
with a lot of his crowd, and some of 'em had tried the gloves on with
me. I didn't go in for sluggin' their blocks off, just to show 'em I
could do it. There's no sense in that, unless you're out for a purse.
Sparrin' for points is the best kind of fun, and for an all 'round tonic
it can't be beat. They liked the way I handled 'em, and they used to say
they wished they could take a dose of that medicine reg'lar, same as the
Boss did.

"And that's just the chance I'm goin' to give 'em," says I.

With that I heads back for Forty-second street, picks out a vacant floor
I'd noticed, and signs a lease. Inside of a week I has the place fixed
up with mat, chest weights, and such; lays in a stock of soft gloves,
buys a medicine ball or two, gets me some cards printed, and has me name
done in gold letters on the ground glass. Boxin' instructor? Not on your
accident policy. Nor private gym., either.

PROFESSOR M'CABE'S
STUDIO OF PHYSICAL CULTURE

That's the way the door plate reads. It may be a bluff, but it scares
off the cheap muggs that would hang around a boxin' school. They don't
know what it means, any more'n if it was Chinese.

Well, when I gets things all in shape I gives out word to some of those
gents, and before I'd been runnin' a fortnight I'd booked business
enough to see that I'd struck it right. What's the use monkeyin' with
comers when you can take on men that's made their pile? They're a
high-toned lot, too, and they don't care what it costs, so long as I
keeps 'em in shape. Some of 'em don't put on the mitts at all, but most
of 'em works up to that.

Now there was Mr. Gordon. Sure, Pyramid Gordon. But I'll have to tell
you about the game he stacks me up against. I'd had him as a reg'lar for
about a month--Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays, from five to six--and
he was just gettin' so he knew what real livin' was, when somethin'
breaks loose down on the stre