“How are you going yourself, Jack?” I asked him.
“You seen this, Walcott?” he says.
“Just in the gym.”
“Well,” Jack says, “I’m going to need a lot of luck with that boy.”
“He can’t hit you, Jack,” Soldier said.
“I wish to hell he couldn’t.”
“He couldn’t hit you with a handful of bird-shot.”
“Bird-shot’d be all right,” Jack says. “I wouldn’t mind bird-shot any.”
“He looks easy to hit,” I said.
“Sure,” Jack says, “he ain’t going to last long. He ain’t going to last like you and me, Jerry. But right now he’s got everything.”
“You’ll left-hand him to death.”
“Maybe,” Jack says. “Sure. I got a chance to.”
“Handle him like you handled Kid Lewis.”
“Kid Lewis,” Jack said. “That kike!”
The three of us, Jack Brennan, Soldier Bartlett, and I were in Handley’s. There were a couple of broads sitting at the next table to us. They had been drinking.
“What do you mean, kike?” one of the broads says. “What do you mean, kike, you big Irish bum?”
“Sure,” Jack says. “That’s it.”
“Kikes,” this broad goes on. “They’re always talking about kikes, these big Irishmen. What do you mean, kikes?”
“Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
“Kikes,” this broad goes on. “Whoever saw you ever buy a drink? Your wife sews your pockets up every morning. These Irishmen and their kikes! Ted Lewis could lick you too.”
“Sure,” Jack says. “And you give away a lot of things free too, don’t you?”
We went out. That was Jack. He could say what he wanted to when he wanted to say it.