The second round began, and the negro taunted his white opponent. He, too, was a great hand at “mouth-fighting,” but as he talked he boxed, and he swung his right and caught Burns on the chin. The white man stumbled slightly and his ankle gave so that he fell, but he rose again at once to receive a straight blow on his left eye, which immediately began to swell. Then Johnson put in a swing on Burns’s stomach. It was his round, and he went to his corner grinning widely, as only a black man can. Burns tried to get close at the next set-to, and again and again hit his adversary’s ribs, but these blows made no impression on Johnson who, whilst the in-fighting continued, struck Burns heavily over the kidneys. During the fourth round both men talked, heaping insults upon each other. And so it went on. Once, after pounding Burns heavily on the ribs, Johnson clinched and over the white man’s shoulder laughed for the benefit of the crowd, and made ironic observations to Burns. It was in the seventh round that Johnson began seriously to hurt his man, and it was palpable to experienced onlookers that he was trying to do so. “I thought Tommy was an in-fighter,” he called out, and sent Burns violently down with a terrific right on the body. Both the white man’s eyes were now swollen, he was bleeding at the mouth, and Johnson was all over him, hitting him as he liked, left and right, hard, but not too hard. He could have knocked him out at any time now, but that was not at all his idea of fun at the expense of the white race. He would keep him on his feet and hurt him. He knew Burns would never give in so long as he could stand. He no doubt guessed that the referee would not stop the fight so long as the smallest chance remained of a lucky blow from Burns. Then the talking began again. “Come on, Tommy, swing your right,” the black laughed, and Burns snarled back, “Yellow Dog!” A disgusting performance on both sides, you say? Yes: and yet there was something wonderfully fine about Burns that day. His prejudice may have been foolish, his behaviour in talking, whether he started it or not, was childish, his methods of self-advertisement before the fight reached the nethermost pit of vulgarity. But he was game. To take a beating at any time, even from your best friend, is hard work. But take a beating from a man you abhor, belonging to a race you despise, to know that he was hurting you and humiliating you with the closest attention to detail, and the coldest deliberation, to know that you don’t stand more than one chance in a hundred of landing a blow which could hurt him, and not one in ten thousand of beating him, and to go on fighting, doing your best to attack, your utmost to defend yourself, with your knees weak, your hands too heavy to lift, your eyes almost blinded, your head singing and dizzy--this requires pluck.