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there.”
    â€œHe’s a sister himself,” the man in the stagged trousers said.
    â€œCan’t you stop that sort of thing?” the cook asked. “Can’t we speak decently?”
    â€œCadillac is where Steve Ketchel came from and where Ad Wolgast is from,” the shy man said.
    â€œSteve Ketchel,” one of the blondes said in a high voice as though the name had pulled a trigger in her. “His own father shot and killed him. Yes, by Christ, his own father. There aren’t any more men like Steve Ketchel.”
    â€œWasn’t his name Stanley Ketchel?” asked the cook.
    â€œOh, shut up,” said the blonde. “What do you know aboutSteve? Stanley. He was no Stanley. Steve Ketchel was the finest and most beautiful man that ever lived. I never saw a man as clean and as white and as beautiful as Steve Ketchel. There never was a man like that. He moved just like a tiger and he was the finest, free-est spender that ever lived.”
    â€œDid you know him?” one of the men asked.
    â€œDid I know him? Did I know him? Did I love him? You ask me that? I knew him like you know nobody in the world and I loved him like you love God. He was the greatest, finest, whitest, most beautiful man that ever lived, Steve Ketchel, and his own father shot him down like a dog.”
    â€œWere you out on the coast with him?”
    â€œNo. I knew him before that. He was the only man I ever loved.”
    Every one was very respectful to the peroxide blonde, who said all this in a high stagey way, but Alice was beginning to shake again. I felt it, sitting by her.
    â€œYou should have married him,” the cook said.
    â€œI wouldn’t hurt his career,” the peroxide blonde said. “I wouldn’t be a drawback to him. A wife wasn’t what he needed. Oh, my God, what a man he was.”
    â€œThat was a fine way to look at it,” the cook said. “Didn’t Jack Johnson knock him out though?”
    â€œIt was a trick,” Peroxide said. “That big dinge took him by surprise. He’d just knocked Jack Johnson down, the big black bastard. That nigger beat him by a fluke.”
    The ticket window went up and the three Indians went over to it.
    â€œSteve knocked him down,” Peroxide said. “He turned to smile at me.”
    â€œI thought you said you weren’t on the coast,” someone said.
    â€œI went out just for that fight. Steve turned to smile at me and that black son of a bitch from hell jumped up and hit himby surprise. Steve could lick a hundred like that black bastard.”
    â€œHe was a great fighter,” the lumberjack said.
    â€œI hope to God he was,” Peroxide said. “I hope to God they don’t have fighters like that now. He was like a god, he was. So white and clean and beautiful and smooth and fast and like a tiger or like lightning.”
    â€œI saw him in the moving pictures of the fight,” Tom said. We were all very moved. Alice was shaking all over and I looked and saw she was crying. The Indians had gone outside on the platform.
    â€œHe was more than any husband could ever be,” Peroxide said. “We were married in the eyes of God and I belong to him right now and always will and all of me is his. I don’t care about my body. They can take my body. My soul belongs to Steve Ketchel. By God, he was a man.”
    Everybody felt terribly. It was sad and embarrassing. Then Alice, who was still shaking, spoke. “You’re a dirty liar,” she said in that low voice. “You never layed Steve Ketchel in your life and you know it.”
    â€œHow can you say that?” Peroxide said proudly.
    â€œI say it because it’s true,” Alice said. “I’m the only one here that ever knew Steve Ketchel and I come from Mancelona and I knew him there and it’s true and you know it’s true and God can strike me dead if it isn’t true.”
    â€œHe can strike me,