Months afterwards, Johnson said that he had faked the fight because he had been promised that if he lost the title to Willard the charge against him of transporting a woman across the state lines for immoral purposes would be dropped. The photo of him lying on the canvas with his arms over his face seemed to support this explanation, and many persons jumped to the conclusion that he was shielding his eyes from the sun! But the truth is that Johnson made the statement to alibi himself. I have six photographs of that knockout and in each Johnson’s eyes are exposed to the full glare of the sun. When a fight is “arranged,” the man who is taking the dive doesn’t fight for twenty-six rounds and break his rival’s ribs and jaw in the bargain, as Johnson had done to Willard! I saw O’Rourke back in the dressing room. The trainer was all smiles. “Nat,” he said, “that black duck turned the trick. It won the title for Jess.” [Illustration: 12] BOXING’S HARLEQUIN Before he paid us the doubtful compliment of becoming our guest in the middle 1920’s, Louis Phal—to give Battling Siki his real name—made France too hot to hold him. They put the singular Senegalese in a set-up against Georges Carpentier in a Paris ring, and he ruined all the schemes of the wise guys by knocking the Orchid Kid cold, after treating the horrified spectators to an exhibition of jungle frenzy. Then, with the light-heavyweight crown on his fuzzy head, he became the pugilistic King Kong of the Paris boulevards, fighting and brawling on the sidewalks of that city until the gendarmes warned him that if he didn’t mend his ways he’d be lynched. He had been brought from his native Senegal as a servant by a Caucasian woman of high degree, who probably thought him amusing, for he was a quaint black fellow with an extreme sense of humor. The trouble was that neither the gendarmes nor the citizens of Paris, especially women, could appreciate his jokes. And there was a sigh of relief when Mike McTigue took the light-heavyweight title from him after a fight in Dublin on St. Patrick’s Day. The decision was a questionable one, but nobody bothered about that; Mike put up a marvellous defensive fight against the black barbarian, who, at one point in the proceedings, turned away from McTigue and threatened to jump out of the ring and murder Georges Carpentier, who was sitting at the ringside taunting the Senegalese. Siki entered the United States quietly. Most fight fans didn’t know much about him, except that he could hit hard and take a lot of punishment. He was a fighter of the dock variety, and when he rolled his eyes he looked terrifying. He was as black as coal and had a thick ruffle of kinky black hair on his head. The American “sports” forgot all about his European reputation and gave him a good hand. They enjoyed his style and his antics, and he in turn enjoyed the attention he received in the States.