in my first fight before Rags Dempster!" begins running through my crazy mind. I can picture him telling Judy how it happened. I don't hear half what the referee's saying, but he winds up with: "Fight hard, hit clean, and break when I tell yuh!" A hoarse whisper hits my ear: "I'll spill you in a minute, you big hick." . . . That's Mr. "Red" Johns, and while he's saying that he's shaking my glove with his, very politely. You should of saw his face—like a tiger's! Well, this about ruins me. I go back to my corner and Nate whips off my bathrobe, then slips down under the ropes, leaving me all alone under them terrible lights—all alone except for the hard-faced referee leaning against the ropes, and "Red" Johns with his back to me across the ring. "Red" Johns has got hold of the top rope with his gloves and he's bending up and down, limbering his leg muscles. I just stand there facing the mob and I see nothing but a howling jumble of blurred, cold sneering faces. Nate shoves his head up under the lower rope:
"Remember, make him come to you—don't go after him. And what ever you do, don't lead with 'at right!"
I hear this "Don't lead with your right!" over and over again, but I'm thinking of what depends on me winning my first start, of Judy, of that sneering Rags out there, and then, to show you how cuckoo I am, I puzzle over what part of a minute is six seconds, that being my ring name. Thoughts is shooting through my head like a news-reel movie being run too fast. I get on one thought and another one blurs it out. Can I last six rounds? Can I keep this scowling, hairy
