which is going to be executed. For instance, at breakfast Nate makes the crack that they's nothing wrong with my appetite, and I think of "The condemned man ate a hearty meal!" Then he makes me get my hair cut close so's it won't flop in my eyes when I'm in there trying, and that reminds me of how prisoners' hair is cut when they're going to be bumped off. Mrs. Willcox mentions me in saying Grace at lunch and I feel she's praying for my soul, which is soon to leave me. If one church bell had tolled while I was on my way to the train, I think I would of fainted!
Neither me or Kayo Kelly is allowed to have any supper, but that's no loss to me, because eating is the last thing I'm thinking of. At seven o'clock we are in the dressing room at the club-house and "Shiney" Jepps, the dinge rubber, and Nate is getting me ready for the—eh—ring. I nearly said gallows! The noise of the mob outside in the arena comes in to me like the boom of the ocean on the beach at night. The grimy dressing-room, lit by a couple of dull yellow wire-screened electric lights smells like a hospital ward. Arnica and aromatic spirits of ammonia, I recognize, but they's another smell I don't. It's like ether. "'At's collodion," says Nate, when I ask him. "Stops bleedin'!" I didn't ask him no more questions after that. Stops bleeding—woof!
After I've stripped and got into white trunks and ring shoes, Nate wraps a roll of soft bandages around each of my hands. That's to protect the knuckles and give me more of a grip when I'm punching. All the time, him and Kayo keeps up a running fire of kidding
