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"I wonder," thought Jimmy as he started for home, "if I have gone up a notch in

the social scale or down a notch? From the view-point of the underworld a pug

occupies a more exalted position than a waiter; but-- oh, well, a job's a job, and

at least I won't have to look at that greasy Feinheimer all day."

At ten o'clock Monday Jimmy was at Young Brophy's training quarters, for,

although he had not forgotten Harriet Holden's invitation, he had never seriously

considered availing himself of her offer to help him to a better position. While he

had not found it difficult to accept the rough friendship and assistance of the

Lizard, the idea of becoming an object of "charity," as he considered it, at the

hands of a girl in the same walk of life as that to which he belonged was

intolerable.

Young Brophy's manager, whom Jimmy discovered to be one of the men who had

accosted him in Feinheimer's after his trouble with Murray, took him into a

private office and talked with him confidentially for a half-hour before he was

definitely employed.

It seemed that one of the principal requisites of the position was a willingness to

take punishment without attempting to inflict too much upon Young Brophy. The

manager did not go into specific details as to the reason for this restriction, and

Jimmy, badly in need of a job, felt no particular inclination to search too deeply

for the root of the matter.

"What I don't know," he soliloquized, "won't hurt me any." But he had not been

there many days before the piecing together of chance remarks and the gossip of

the hangers-on and other sparring partners made it very apparent why Brophy

should not be badly man-handled. As it finally revealed itself to Jimmy it was very

simple indeed. Brophy was to be pitted against a man whom he had already out-

pointed in a former bout. He was the ruling favorite in the betting, and it was the

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