It'd do me proud.
But them sickenin', sap-headed stiffs, with the grit of rabbits and the silk of mangy ky-yi's, a-cheerin' me--ME! Can you blame me for quittin' the dirty game ?--Why, I'd sooner fight before broke-down old plugs of work-horses that's candidates for chicken-meat, than before them rotten bunches of stiffs with nothin' thicker'n water in their veins, an' Contra Costa water at that when the rains is heavy on the hills." "I...

I didn't know prizefighting was like that," she faltered, as she released her hold on the lines and sank back again beside him.
"It ain't the fightin', it's the fight-crowds," he defended with instant jealousy.

"Of course, fightin' hurts a young fellow because it frazzles the silk outa him an' all that.

But it's the low-lifers in the audience that gets me.

Why the good things they say to me, the praise an' that, is insulting.