Edgar Rice Burroughs: The Efficiency Expert

12. CHAPTER XII. UP OR DOWN?

After Jimmy had received his check and was about to leave, a couple of men approached him.

"We seen that little mix-up in there," said one of them. "You handle your mitts like you been there before."

"Yes," said Jimmy, smiling, "I've had a little experience in the manly art of self-defense."

The two men were sizing him up.

"Feinheimer can you?" asked one of them. Jimmy nodded affirmatively. "Got anything else in view?"

"No," said Jimmy.

"How'd you like a job as one of Brophy's sparring partners?"

"I wouldn't mind," said Jimmy. "What is there in it?"

They named a figure that was entirely satisfactory to Jimmy.

"Come over the day after Christmas," he was told, "and we'll give you a trial."

"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.