Page:Fighting blood (IA fightingblood00witw).pdf/173

 At a quarter of ten the next night I am clambering through the ropes at the Superba A. C. in Jersey City, with Nate, Kayo Kelly, and Shiney Jepps, my handlers, trailing after me. For the first time since I been a leather pusher I get a frenzied outburst of applause before I show my wares. The reason for that ain't hard to guess. I am going to fight a champion, and the average fight fan loves to see a champion unchamped. After I rub my shoes in the rosin and sit down on the stool in the corner Nate has picked out, I look around at the ten thousand-odd excited customers which has come to see me and Frankie Jackson prove that self-defense is not only a plea but a art. The champ has resorted to the old trick of making me sit out there in the ring and wait for him, the objects being to get me nervous; but that's a waste of time on Frankie's part, because I have become nerve-proof. I'm telling the truth when I tell you that this battle don't bother me no more than any other. As far as that part of it goes, no matter if I fight Dempsey, I'll never again get the kick out of a box fight that I did out of my first one! I guess it's the same way about a man's first anything—hey?

No—it's the crowd which gives me the kick now. It always does, and I look around and study 'em with as much interest as they're studying every move I make. For a few minutes I got the undivided attention of bricklayers, bankers, lawyers, pickpockets, doctors, shipping clerks, yeggs, actors, sporting men, and other leather pushers who may box me later and come to see what I got. All around the ring, right