NVELOPES. Don't you remember how you used to pounce upon the broad white envelopes with embossed titles in the upper left-hand corners, that came in the morning's mail? You still open them as they come, but without enthusiasm; for right well you know that you are going to be invited to a banquet (where nobody laughs any more) or to some kind of a sale; or some ancient sweetheart of yours is announcing her twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, and naturally you are expected to dig up something in silver.
But these ordinary envelopes, bought already stamped, written in lead-pencil, thumb-marked, disreputable! Never yet have you opened one of these and been wholly disappointed. You have found everything in these chirographical outcasts—tragedy, comedy, inexpressible romance, “mute inglorious” Miltons.
So it is with human envelopes; the gold lies within the shabby Of course there will sometimes be a beautiful envelope with a beautiful content; but in this noisy jungle of ours, they are white orchids.
Certainly, upon seeing Jimmy Conway, alias Dope, for the first time, your initial thought would be: I should not care to meet that chap after dark!
Jake Killian trained prize-fighters and managed them. His camp was in the foothills of the Adirondacks. He believed in training his man so far from New York that junkets were impossible. The result was, he had on his string a middle- and a light-weight, real contenders, clean, healthy fighting-machines and formidable box-office attractions. Tommy Sands and Willie Donlin drew big purses and put away their “cuts” against that rainy day inevitable in the lives of ring-men.
The camp consisted of a comfortable frame house on one side of the road, and a roomy barn on the other. This barn had been converted into a gymnasium, the stalls having been made over into bedrooms, where the handlers and pork-and-beaners slept.
Dope's true patronymic was unknown to most of those who knew him. He was called Dope because he was a peripatetic World's Almanac on all matters of fistiana. Killian fed and clothed him and gave him a little money from time to. time. Whenever Sands or Donlin was matched with some comparatively unknown scrapper, Killian consulted Dope. In ringside phraseology, Dope would point out the merits and demerits of the challenger; and nine times out of ten, his information would be correct. Hence, the nickname......
It began on a May day. A few compact white clouds sailed northeast across the blue The willows were golden; the spruce and balsam were developing tender bloomy greens among the rusty Emerald green were the fields that rolled down from the forest rim. The air was full of magic; it got into the blood—sap was springing up in all things that lived. Far away to the north were the mountains where patches of snow gleamed whitely—the stubborn fingers of winter sullenly giving way.
The boys were gathered at the south end of the barn, roughing it with the handball. They were barking joyously like young dogs.
“Soak it, ol' scout!”
“Atta boy!”
Dull of eye, Dope sat on the stone wall. He was wizen and rateyed and flat of chest First-off, he repelled you; you had to get used to him to dissipate the suggestion that it wouldn't be wise to come upon him in the dark. Thus it is that Fate stamps humanity with her ironic heel. Within that gargoyle of a body burned the soul of Galahad, striving desperately to get out, to express itself. Galahad, blind and swordless!
It was hard work to become friends with Dope; but once the contract was made, it was bound with hoops of steel. Perhaps, of all those who knew Dope, only Killian's niece suspected the imprisoned thing that beat itself against invisible bars.
Dope talked the argot of the ring; for the life of him, he could not have said ten words without committing mayhem upon some of them. But he read “Treasure Island,” “Lorna Doone,” “Rodney Stone,” “The Three Musketeers,” “The Tale of Two Cities'—any good book he could lay his hands on. Of course there had to be fighting, or a book was worthless to him. One of his pet heroes was Umslopogas, that bloody old Zulu of Rider Haggard's tales. Dope was educating his mind, but his tongue was a truculent, unconquerable rebel. Once Jenny Killian had found him sniveling. He had just come upon Sidney Carton's end. Shamed at being caught in such unmanly weakness, he had confessed to a bad cold in the head; and Jenny, full of understanding, had given him some camphor pills, never again remarking the incident.