“Aw, shut up!” Conko rumbled as he breathed in the air from Skeeter’s flapping towel. “I’s gwine pull dat stuff in de nex’ round. I’s savin’ it fer de third, because de third time is de charm.” “De Lawd’ll shorely bless you fer sayin’ that, Conko,” Skeeter panted, with tears in his eyes. “My Gawd, ef us don’t win, I’ll sho’ wish I’d been borned a corn-field mule!” The gong sounded for the third round. Conko Mukes stepped in the middle of the ring and howled: “In dis here nex’ roun’ I’s gwine win out. I’s gwine hypnertize dis here Hitch Diamond an’ put him to sleep. I’ll take one look at his ugly mug wid my right eye, an’ he’ll stan’ up in dis ring like a dead man on his foots----” “My Gawd, Hitchey!” Goldie screamed as she pressed through the crowd and grabbed the ropes by Hitch. “Look out fer dat nigger! He’ll git you hypped, an’ he cain’t unhyp you!” Then she turned and ran toward Tickfall like a yellow streak. “Dat’s right, sister!” Conko Mukes bellowed as he watched her departure. “You don’t ’pear to be anxious to stay an’ see it done, but dat’s yo’ Uncle Conko’s little game! Dis here Hitch Diamond is gwine to sleep, an’ I don’t keer ef he never wakes up!” As Conko sat down Hitch arose and smiled at the crowd. “I never goes to sleep till I wins!” he bawled. “Conko is done made a miscue ’bout who is gwine take a nap. I’s de real old fat mammy whut’ll sing li’l’ baby Conko to sleep!” Thereupon Conko Mukes performed a stunt which had never before been witnessed in a pugilistic ring, and which Conko in his subsequent career never attempted to duplicate. He sprang toward Hitch Diamond, sparred for a moment, clinched, and shrieked like a calliope: “Sleep! Sleep! Sleep, Hitch Diamond--go to sleep!” This wonderful performance scared Hitch Diamond nearly out of his wits. He broke from the clinch, smashed Conko against the ropes, and then began hooking and driving all sorts of blows against him, tearing himself out of Conko’s frenzied clinches, punching him, shoving him against the ropes again and again until the cypress saplings to which the ropes were attached bowed beneath the storm and weight of human contestants. Through it all, like some mighty chant, the stentorian voice of Conko rumbled the dreadful malediction: “Sleep! Sleep! Go to sleep, Hitch Diamond--sleep!” But Hitch never rested a moment, and Conko, looking for an opening to get in his hypnotic eyework, let Hitch chase him all around the ring a dozen times. There were three minutes of this screaming farce, and when it ended, Hitch Diamond was reeling and staggering from his wild chase around the ring, and his legs were cramping under him and felt like lead. Without knowing it, Hitch had spun around like a top for three minutes, and a natural dizziness was upon him, and before his bewildered eyes the crowd of faces sagged and swayed, disappeared and reappeared.