“Yeah. Guess it’s a gin can for us after the next juggling bout.” She grinned in anticipation. Then, “Look, Babe.” Jenny pointed to a corner upstairs where a door opened. “There’s Charlie Yates comin’ out of the dressin’ room. He’s got a new fighter, I hear. What d’ya know about that. Maybe he’s breakin’ him in here tonight. Sure, he is! There he comes down the stairs!”

Babe turned to Pat Flannigan, a fireman she knew from the 145th Street station house, who knew Charlie Yates well.

“Yates got somethin’ on here tonight?”

“The main bout,” Flannigan said. “Comin’ on now.”

“What kind of a socker is he?”

“A middleweight. Charlie says he’s the best looking pug he’s ever bumped into. Certainly does look like class, too.”

“You know him?”

“Charlie introduced me to him. I was watching him work out a few times at the 125th Street gym.”

“Where’d Charlie get him?”

“You’d laugh. Picked him off a truck.”

“Oh, a truck-driver. How lovely! I could care for that. What’s his name?”

“Bearcat Delaney.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Sure, he’s doin’ six rounds with Blacksmith Cooper. Ought to be a swell battle.”

Jenny grabbed Babe’s arm. “Charlie’s lamped us.”

“Well, that’s goin’ to spoil his whole evening.” Babe laughed.

“Now don’t do no low-crackin’ with him. Here he comes.”

Charlie Yates, dapper little manager of several promising white fighters, was turning into the aisle, where Babe and Jenny sat, a toothpick stuck in the corner of his mouth and his keen blue eyes snapping confidently out of his thin serious face. Charlie stepped down the aisle toward the ring. Just as he neared Babe, she flung a leg nonchalantly over her knee into his path. Charlie had to side-step her and his lips twisted into a forced grin.

“Hello, Charlie. What’ve you got tonight?”

“Nothin’ for you,” Charlie cut back at her.

Babe yelled back at him.

“Well, I’ll look it over anyway.”

Charlie took a seat at the ringside. Blacksmith Cooper with his seconds climbed through the ropes at the front corner of the ring. He was big-chested and powerfully developed through the shoulders; arms like the legs of a meat block and a cannonball head. He was wrapped in a purple padded robe with yellow lapels, his name in yellow letters across the back of the robe. Limbering up on the ropes he resembled a jungle ape. The referee and announcer waited for the other fighter coming down the aisle toward the vacant corner. Bearcat Delaney swung himself easily through the ropes of the upper ring. A cream-colored bathrobe, left unfastened, revealed the healthy tan of outdoor training, and the firm muscles that moved like oiled springs as he stepped to his corner. His seconds followed him. The crowd looked at this young pugilist with respectful admiration. Handclapping broke out over the arena.