IN AND OUT BY EDGAR FRANKLIN Frontispiece by PAUL STAHR New York W. J. Watt & Company PUBLISHERS Copyright, 1917, by W. J. WATT & COMPANY PRESS OF BRAUNWORTH & CO. BOOK MANUFACTURERS BROOKLYN, N. Y. [Illustration: The girl weighed, perhaps, one hundred and twenty pounds, and handling that amount of weight was a mere joke to Wilkins] CONTENTS I. THE GREAT UNRECOGNIZED II. THEORY'S VICTIM III. OPPORTUNITY IV. THE RELUCTANT ONE V. THE WEE SMA' HOURS VI. JOHNSON BOLLER PROPOSES VII. THE BUTTERFLY VIII. SCORNED IX. CRIME? X. THE WEB XI. THE OTHER LADY XII. THE CRASH XIII. IN THE BOX XIV. CONCERNING THREE GROUPS XV. THICK AND FAST XVI. THE LIE IN AND OUT CHAPTER I The Great Unrecognized Up in the ring, the long-nosed person who had been announced as Kid Horrigan was having things much his own way with the smaller person billed as the Bronx Tornado. It was the wont of Kid Horrigan to step forward lightly, to rap the Tornado smartly on the bridge of the nose, and thereafter to step back as lightly and wait until the few wild blows had fanned the air and the Tornado had returned to his meaningless and somewhat bewildered crouch. Thereupon, in almost preoccupied fashion, the Kid stepped forward once more--and when he had done it again and again the performance began to grow monotonous and, down in Box B at the ringside, Johnson Boller yawned aloud. The yawn finished, he leaned over wearily and addressed Anthony Fry. "If that little wheeze had the pep of a dead mosquito," said Johnson Boller disgustedly, "he'd take that big stiff when his hands are up like that and slip him an uppercut that would freeze him solid!" Anthony Fry's intellectual features relaxed in a faint smile. "He's had several chances, hasn't he?" he mused. "Several? He's had fifty! He gets three a minute and--well, look at that!" "Yes, he missed another opportunity then, didn't he?" said Anthony. "Curious!" Johnson Boller's cigar rolled to the other side of his mouth and he hunched down farther in his chair. "And nine more rounds of it to go!" he sighed. Anthony Fry merely smiled more pensively and nodded, removing his nose-glasses and tapping his teeth reflectively--and, among other things, causing the red-faced, partially alcoholized trio behind them in Box B to wonder what he was doing at a prize fight anyway.