FIFTY GRAND
around the wrist and twice across the knuckles.
“Hey,” Freedman says. “Where do you get all that tape?”
“Feel of it,” Jack says. “It’s soft, ain’t it? Don’t be a hick.”
Freedman stands there all the time while Jack bandages the other hand, and one of the boys that’s going to handle him brings the gloves and I pull them on and work them around.
“Say, Freedman,” Jack asks, “what nationality is this Walcott?”
“I don’t know,” Solly says. “He’s some sort of a Dane.”
“He’s a Bohemian,” the lad who brought the gloves said.
The referee called them out to the centre of the ring and Jack walks out. Walcott comes out smiling. They met and the referee put his arm on each of their shoulders.
“Hello, popularity,” Jack says to Walcott.
“Be yourself.”
“What do you call yourself ‘Walcott’ for?” Jack says. “Didn’t you know he was a nigger?”
“Listen—” says the referee, and he gives
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