Vinegar Atts, the referee, came over and shook Hitch by the hand. Atts was a broken-down pugilist whom the Lord had called to preach after his last K. O., and he and Hitch were great friends. “How you feelin’, Hitchey?” Vinegar wanted to know. “Feel as sweet as a fly in a vat of merlasses,” Hitch grinned. “Don’t let yo’ knock-out punch git sour,” Vinegar grinned. “I got all my loose change on you.” There was another roar of applause, and Conko Mukes emerged from his plum-thicket and came through the crowd, his knotty, shaved head shining in the sun like a block of ivory. His scarred and villainous face, with its mashed lips and broken nose and iron jaw, glowed with excitement and enthusiasm. The mob applauded without partizanship as he climbed through the ropes and sat down in his corner. Each pugilist eyed the other curiously, but neither could see much, for both were swathed in horse-blankets. Prince Total and a scar-faced negro named Possum, Hitch Diamond’s seconds, slipped on Hitch’s gloves and laced them tight, while Skeeter Butts and Figger Bush performed the same office for Conko Mukes. Then the seconds removed the heavy woolen horse-blankets, and the two fighters stood forth in their ring costumes, visible in all their fighting strength for the first time to the crowd--both men deep-chested, heavy-thewed, with muscles which moved like live snakes under their black-satin skins, their bodies acrawl with life and brutal power. The two men advanced and touched gloves. Then something happened which would make old John L. Sullivan laugh till he dislocated his iron jaw. You who follow the fistic combats of Jess Willard and other white hopes and hopelessnesses, know that for months before the combatants meet in the ring their press-agents are busy informing the public what each pugilist says he expects to do to his opponent. In the negro prize-fights in the South, the pugilist, lacking the press-agent, demands the right to make a speech before each round of the fight, in which he tells his friends and backers what he expects to do to his opponent in the next round. Can you beat that? So, in accordance with this custom, after the two fighters had touched gloves, Hitch Diamond went back to his corner and sat down. Conko Mukes stepped to the middle of the ring and bellowed: “I’s de great unwhupped Tuskeegee Cyclome. I fights any nigger whut misdoubts my words! I’s de brayin’ jackass of Georgia, an’ no nigger in Tickfall cain’t comb my mane!” He sprang up, cracked his heels together, waved his gorilla-like arms in the air, and uttered a piercing whoop which echoed like a steam-whistle far down the Dorfoche Bayou. Thereupon Hitch Diamond sprang to his feet and howled: “I fights any nigger in the worl’ fer two bits, fer a chaw terbaccer, fer a watermillyum rind, fer de tail of a tadpole!” He jumped three feet in the air, cracked his heels together like two clapboards, and shrieked: