Van Aylstyne who doped out the stuff
so the Kid "no fighta the champ!" He's a tall, slim, gentle-lookin'
bird, all dressed in white like a Queen of the May or somethin' and
after hearin' him talk I figured my first guess was about right. We
also got to know Edmund De Vronde, one of the leadin' men and the shop
girls' delight, and him and Van Aylstyne were both members of the same
lodge. Whilst we're standin' there talkin' to Genaro, who I found out
was the headkeeper or somethin', along comes Miss Vincent in one of
them trick autos that has a seat for two thin people and a gasoline
tank. Only, you don't sit in 'em, you just stoop, with your knees
jammed up against your chin. She drives this thing right up and stops
where we're standin'. If she ever looked any better, she'd have fell
for herself!

"I'm going to Long Beach," she sings out, "and I'm going to hit nothing
but the tops of the trees! Come along?"

De Vronde, Van Aylstyne and the Kid left their marks at the same time,
but you know, my boy was welterweight champ and when that auto buzzed
away from there he went with it.

"Ugh!" remarks De Vronde. "I loathe those creatures!" He dusts off
his sleeve where the Kid had grabbed it to toss him to one side. "The
fellow struck me!" he says indignantly.

Van Aylstyne picks up his hat which had fell off in the struggle.

"Thank Heavens," he tells the other guy, "we will soon be rid of him!
I'll have the script ready for Genaro to-morrow! I never saw such a
vicious assault!"

They walked away, and I turns to Genaro who had stepped aside for a
minute.

"Say!" I asks him. "Is this De Vronde guy worth anything to you?"

"_Sapristi_!" he tells me, makin' a face. "I could keel him! He'sa
wan greata big what you call bunk! He'sa no good! He can't act, he
can do nothing. Joosta got nice face--that's all!"

"Well," I says, "he won't have no nice face, if he don't lay off the
Kid! If Scanlan hears him make any cracks about him like he just did
now--well, he'll practically ruin him, that's all!"

After a while the Kid and Miss Vincent comes back and she hurries away
to change her clothes because she's got to work in this Richard the
Third thing. The Kid is all covered with dirt and mud and his face is
all cut up from the flyin' pebbles and sand.

"Say!" he says to me. "That's some dame, believe me! We passed
everything on the road from here to Long Beach and on the way back we
beat the Sante Fe in