AS I CLUMB into the ring that night in the Pleasure Palace Fight
Club, on the Hong Kong waterfront, I was low in my mind. I'd come to
Hong Kong looking for a former shipmate of mine. I'd come on from
Tainan as fast as I could, even leaving my bulldog Mike aboard the
_Sea Girl,_ which wasn't due to touch at Hong Kong for a couple of
weeks yet.
But Soapy Jackson, the feller I was looking for, had just dropped
plumb out of sight. Nobody'd saw him for weeks, or knowed what had
become of him. Meanwhile my dough was all gone, so I accepted a bout
with a big Chinese fighter they called the Yeller Typhoon.
He was a favorite with the sporting crowd and the Palace was
jammed with both white men and Chineses that night, some very high
class. I noticed one Chinee in particular, whilst setting in my corner
waiting for the bell, because his European clothes was so swell, and
because he seemed to take such a burning interest in the goings on.
But I didn't pay much attention to the crowd; I was impatient to get
the battle over with.
The Yeller Typhoon weighed three hundred pounds and he was a head
taller'n me; but most of his weight was around his waist-line, and he
didn't have the kind of arms and shoulders that makes a hitter. And it
don't make no difference how big a Chinaman is, he can't take it.
I wasn't in no mood for classy boxing that night. I just walked
into him, let him flail away with both hands till I seen a opening,
and then let go my right. He shook the ring when he hit the boards,
and the brawl was over.
Paying no heed to the howls of the dumbfounded multitude, I
hastened to my dressing-room, donned my duds, and then hauled a letter
from my britches pocket and studied it like I'd done a hundred times
before.
It was addressed to Mr. Soapy Jackson, American Bar, Tainan,
Taiwan, and was from a San Francisco law firm. After Soapy left the
_Sea Girl,_ he tended bar at the American, but he'd been gone a month
when the _Sea Girl_ docked at Tainan again, and the proprietor showed
me that letter which had just come for him. He said Soapy had went to
Hong Kong, but he didn't know his address, so I took the letter and
come on alone to find him, because I had a idea it was important.
Maybe he'd been left a fortune.
