Oh, boy!
"Listen, guy!" pipes this big, dignified whatnot. "I'm on the level, all right and I want the lowdown on this thing, d'ye make me?" (Me and the Kid nearly went dead on our feet listenin'.) "As for wallopin' me on the beak, well—you may be welterweight champion out here, but if you start anything with me, I'll remove you from the title, d'ye get that?"
Woof!
The Kid and me falls back against a rock, fightin' for air!
"Oh, Lady!" whispers the Kid, fannin' himself with his hat. "Did you hear what I did?"
"Call me at seven!" I gasps.
"Well—?" drawls Van Ness, lookin' us over.
"They's just one thing I'd like to know," murmurs the Kid, wipin' his forehead with my handkerchief in the excitement. "What part of dear old England was you born in?"
Van Ness grins some more.
"Brooklyn!" he says, jerkin' out the eye glass again and stickin' it on his eye. "Surely, my man," he goes on, with that old silly stare of his; "surely you have heard of jolly old Brooklyn—what?"