With Jenny it was a different story. After a disappointing love affair, because of her natural weakness she took to drugs and then the easiest way. She was really not as bad as she was weak. She would have been satisfied with one man, but the man she loved she could not have, and this was the easiest way to forget.

The announcer stepped into the ring to introduce the boys for the first bout: a good looking French light-middleweight and an Italian. Luts of wops fought at the Club, and Babe had tried them a-plenty, but a Frenchman was somewhat of a novelty. She had heard they were unusual in matters of love. They had a superior knowledge of the grand passion, just as educated guys understood algebra where most people were only wise to plain arithmetic. It made her think of that wise-crack, “Fifty million Frenchmen can’t be wrong.” She’d watch this boy. She could get an idea, from the way a fighter handled himself in the ring, of the way he treated women. If he was awkward in fighting, he’d be awkward in love. She’d see what his style suggested. If it promised something different—a new kick—she’d go out for him. Babe always picked her men. She was favorite moll around the Marathon Fight Club, and she chose her boy friends with the care a debutante used in selecting gowns.

The gong sounded. It was a bloody affair of clinches. The fighting was terrific. The Frenchman was flashy and graceful. He was knocked out in the second round. Babe knew she might as well look elsewhere for that night. She nudged Jenny.

“Well, that let’s him out as far as I’m concerned.”

Jenny replied without enthusiasm: “Give me a healthy spaghetti twister any time.”

“I don’t mind a healthy Wop myself, now and then, but I was thinkin’ just for a change. You know, if I never made a Frenchman, I’d feel that my education would be sadly neglected.”

The bell sounded again. A Jap and a Catholic boy, who first crossed himself, tore into each other. The Jap pulverized the white boy, and the yellow heads of the Japs at the ringside popped out of the black slopes like blooming dandelions. The mix was stopped before the round was over, the Jap being declared the winner.

Next Alessandro Rosa and Honey Boy Adams, a Cuban black and a Harlem Negro, bantam-weights, whipped around the ring like chocolate cake batter. The Cuban scored a win. Clyde Jackson and Spike McCarthy, heavyweights, knocked into each other like rolling beer casks for four rounds to a draw. Walter Erickson and Oscar Peters, lightweights, hung onto each other like two drunks trying to tell each other a story.

“Same old ham card tonight, Jenny,” Babe commented.