The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, December 31, 1905, Page 14

THE SAN 1er by duet, to see me at lasf on the way e's ing ter , of course; t's broken his room the athletic young men . ng Fitz with silent sympathy rise in greeting when I enter and in response to the formalities of intro- ‘eart’s good this rok beginning, is broken s of his e de of lis sorrow are conveyed me motions of n after the the masseur and the leeches—is ' a_ bruised purplish lumpy thing, dimly and grotesquely featured, defying identi- fication by photogra: or, Bertillon system 1 see at once why the roped arena is forever secure against female invasion. Not all the glory and the gain in the world could compensate a woman for a face like that But Mr. Fitzsimmons .doesn't seem to care. He does not, indeed, seem to care very much about anything in particu- lar. . S He is singularly apathetic and ab- stracted. 0 He 1is not llving over again the inci- dents of the battle of the night before. He is not inveighing against fate nor reviling fortune. He is just explaining his defeat In a colorless voice. “Oh, T guess I'm too old—I wasn't fast enough.” He is not really thinking of the fight, as he pats the sorer spots of his face with soothing finger tip. He hasn’t even read the morning papers that tell the story of his passing as & pugilist. ‘What, I wonder, s Mr. Fitzsimmons thinking of if not of that vivid scene of the night before? ~ He tells me that the Mr. O'Brien whose . punch, has punctuated his care with a full stop has Jjust been sitting in the chair where I am; that he came up to “inquire about him,. to proffer his services and advice, and that he recommends collodion for black eyes. 1 think 1t is very nice and polite of Mr. O'Brien, and Mr. Fitzsimmons says yes, it is, and that their relations are cordial. “’E's a good fellow, all right, is O’'Brien,” says Mr. Fitzsimmons, “an’, of course, we're friendly. W'y ‘shouldn’t we be? Fighting {s just a business; that's :!:l it is. There's no need for :'ard feel- 7 . . “Now, there’s Jim Jeffries—there’s. no A BOB FITZSIMMONS. FRANCISCO SUNDAY CALL . . B ks better fellow ever walked than ‘im. There's not a crooked bone in ‘is body. 'E couldn’t do any one dirt, ‘e couldn’t. 'E'S a8 syuare as they make 'em—I say 1t, an’ 'E licked ME. S “An’ then there’s Corbett—Gentleman Jim!” GENTLEMAN Jim, indeed. There never was a name a greater misfit than that. Him a gentleman—HIM! Huh!" © Mr.' Fitzsimmons' is' not so apathetic now. “Oh,'” he throws out a halry fist In despalr and bangs it against the wall, “I can’t think' of nothin’ mean emough to pell what I think of him. There AIN'T nothin’ mean enough that you can say— \before ladies. L . “But.I'll say.this about him—as a fight- er he's the cleverest of them all; I say ‘that . because .I'm square. . You can put “I give every ome his due, just what's HY HELEN comin’ to him, but I don’t forget it 12 he’'s done me any girt—never. 'Say, do you know how I came to be a fighter? Now, there’s a story for you— & story that ain’t never been printed. “It was havin’ dirt. dons to me that made me a fighter—that decided my ca~ reer: “It was in Timaru, New Zealand, when I was a littie kid, 11 years old. I remem- ber it just as well as if it happened last night—better. “My mother sent me for a pen‘orth of snuff. It was just about § o'clock—I re- member the kind of day it was, even. I cut across lots, and in one of the open Icts there was a lot of fellows playing football, all bigger'n me, an’, of course, T stopped to take it in, boylike. “The ball was kicked my way, an’ I grabRed 1§ and started, thinkin' there was my chance to cut in. I'd no sooner done it than a big fellow—a regular big slob, I'd know him anywhere if ever I saw him—smashed me; just let go of his fist in my face and smashed me. “That was the last I knew for three hours and a half. That's how long he put me out for. I know that was the time, for it was about 5 o’clock when I started for the snuff, and it was after $:30 ‘when I got home. “When I woke up it was dark and cold and 1 was all alone in that open lot. There wasn’t any of them in sight. They'd all run away and left me. “Well, I got up and went home, and I didn’t say nothin’ about what had hap- pened to me, but I thought a lot about it. “I set to work to learn how to box. Every chance I could get to see how it was done V'd take. Every new move I'd see I'd practlce. “I'd go 'round every now and then and look for that big slob. All I was prac- ticing for was just to get him. I wanted to smash him just once. But I've never laid eyes on him from that day to this. “While I was in New Zealand I had a good many chances in amateur bouts, and wherever I went I kept a lookout for that fellow. I never was in a crowd but what I looked for his face, but I never saw him. . “That's the thing that made a fighter of me. Perhaps if that hadn’t happened the world would never have heard of Bob Fitzsimmons.” “And what,” 1 want to know, “has Mr. Fitzsimmons got out of fighting?"” “Nothing,” the long, hairy, freckled arms shoot out of the bath gown sleeves in a despairing outward wave, “nothing but getting robbed! “I've becn robbed oyt of $55,000 in purses! “I've been robbed out of $300,000 in the thedtrical business! “Ive’— Mr. Fitzsimmons’ voice dles away and his chin sinks upon his breast. His passion of protest is over and he is thinking alone and not aloud. Again I ponder. “I've fought 367 fights in my career,” the figh'¥ fire and fighting pride flaming again in his eyes and flashing through the little cracks left by the blows of defeat, “and I've been beaten only three times! “There's more in fighting than money! “Why, I don't suppose there's a coun- try In the world where Bob Fitzsim- mons isn't known. “T'd be willing te bet that more peo- ple ‘have heard of me than of any other man living. “I know I've never been anywhers where Bob Fitzsimmons wasn't known, nor run across anybody who hadn't heard of me. “Why, when Fred Taral—you re- member him as a jockey, don’t you?— was training horses In Russia he said the Russians, all sorts of them, would come up to him and ask him if he knew Bob Fitzsimmons, and want to know what Bob Fitzsimmons was like —but they dldn't know what the name ofjthe President was. “Let me tell you something that hap= pened on a trip from Loulsville, where I had been for a boxing match.” His volce almost escapes from gloom to cheerfulness now. “Going back to Chicago there were a lot of us all together on the train— sporting men, the newspaper men, and that sort, all having a good time. We were tled up at some place in the ‘Wwoods for a while, with the hills run- ning up from the river. One of the fellows came In and told us there wry the 4 OF HIS DEFEAT DARE . a spring of fine w of a hill and we went up to get 2 drink and look around “It W il when we got to the Spring there was a lout of a boy as gree “The fellows sta ed and Lew Housman Dbeg Bim: y. aid you ever hear of Adn Dewey? “‘Naw." «‘Admiral Sampson? “‘Naw, never he: Bampson.” : “Did you ever hear of George Wash- ington? “‘George Washington? know who he ls.” “Do you know who the President 1 of the United States is?" «Naw, don't know who the Presi- dent of the United States s’ “Di@ you ever hear of Roosevelty of Admiral Naw; don't «Naw, I ain't never heard of Roosevelt.’ “‘Do you know, Housman was thinking hard for another one, and his eye hit me. ‘Do you know who Fitse simmons 187 « ‘Fitzstmmons! Betcherlife I do. Hee! Hee! Heel “Now,” sald Mr. Fitzsimmons ex~ panding his chest, “THAT shows!™ We drift, how no one may say, fer such things find their own curreat, te talk of the Mrs. Fitzsimmons who was She who was Rose Jullan, and whe had as much zest In his ring Ddattles as he aid himself. “Yes,” he says with & sigh out of the very bottom of his heart. “yes, there never was a better WomaRl--no® a better wife—on this earth than she was.” The sigh was not, I'm sure, for the Mrs. Fitzsimmons who was, but— I ponder no more. And what, I want to know, Fitzsimmons going to do now? “Perhaps,” he says, like one repeat- ing a lesson, “I'll stay on the stage Perhaps I'll manage my wife. I'm baving an opera written for her. She has the finest soprano voice in this Bob Fitasimmons? He's a fighter, he in is M» 1 supplement, * very pretty.” “Yes,” he says In that -curioas troubled his on this aft- ernoon, * He' does not. isfled expecta man on whom a blow rather of one ex The next morning I am at the Fitzsimmons r He meets m ing right that will swi swings and cut no more uppercuts to glory. He tells me no more press agent stories and tries on me no more mono- logue samples. “Oh, Gawd,” his back to t stage, “my " he says play art’s broke huskily, with on the bare all right t morning. There's not a sadder man in I've lost— San Francisco than I am. I've lost more than & fight.’ “If I could do it I'd go first train and see for myself. ““Ere I am, tled up to THIS when Id give my ‘ead to be able to get away. He is talking to himseif as much as to me, and pulling the champlon $5000 French poodle’s tufts of whiskers until the poodle protests with a soft little whine. Then he makes amends by patting his head and smoothing his ears. on the o, it's not the losing of the fight that 'urts, ard It's not business. It's— He doesn’t say what it is and he doesn’t need to, of course. What it is Is a week-old story now. the rehearsal of “A Fight fo# Tove” must go on, even over broken hearts, and it is Fitz who rehearses the actors, and not, as I thought, the other way round. re,” he says, “that’s not the way to do that. Don't laugh. Do it this way. Go up like this" he hunches a shoulder, projects his chin and swag- gers, “and say it ltke this: “‘But if you TROW me after it's done it's yours next! Do you under- stand DAT? YOURS next!” It Is a lesson in acting to young Mr. Berger who takes his acting friv- olously. “"Ere,” calls Mr. Fitzsimmons as the Teal actors troop off helter skelter— * don’t you KNOW—Iladles first." “‘Remember you are safe so long as there is ladies present'—that's the cue, and there you go, but let the LADY go first. ‘'Ow the well, 'ow would it look if you didn't?” However lightly, however frivolot Iy t ers, the real actors, may take “A Fight for Love,” Mr. Fitzsimmons sees no frivolity in ft. It Is Fitz as he_sees himself and nothing could exceed the court with which he rehearses the lines “Allow me, Miss Ellington, sent you this New horse shoe souvenir of our meeting.” Nothing, unless it is the fervor with which he clasps the leading lady to ample . chest—after transferring from the wrong arm to.the the sake of the picture—and exclaims: “HOW could I lose, Vivian, when it was a fight for love! I don’t know how it is at other re- hearsals, but on this morning the love scenes hold an added interest for Fitz, poor Fitz, who, one of his friends whispers to me, “is as affectionate as a dog,” and they hold an added pathos for the lookers-on who already more than suspect why there i3 such fervor and such passion in the delivery of his lines. Fitz is finding an outlet. . e the steps of the Alhambra ¥ bump into a friend of Fitz's, running up, who has heard of the unhappiness of a beaten man be- fore the papers have it. “Say,” he says in the enthuslasm of his youth, “sa he says scatterin logic and relation to the winds, “she'd never have done this If she'd been a man, would she? She'd never have thrown him when he was down!™ And I am inclined to agree with by to pre- as a his As I run down ol