shoulder and the whispered comment as you pass, 'There goes our
champion!' that counts. Looking back at it from the thirties, it isn't
so important; but in the twenties it means a lot. My dressing room was
near Gallagher's, so that, although he didn't know this, I could not
help overhearing much that was said there. After we got back to our
rooms, I heard some friend of Gallagher's refer to me as 'a damn Jew'.
What was my delight at Gallagher's magnanimity to hear him answer, 'Why
do you call him a damn Jew? He is a very fine fellow and a better boxer
than me, the best day I ever saw.' "

That incident seems to me typical of the Native Son; and the long
unbroken friendship that grew out of it, equally so.

A few years ago an interview with Willie Ritchie appeared in a New York
paper. He had just boxed Johnny Dundee, defeating him. In passing I may
state that Mr. Ritchie was, during that winter, taking an agricultural
course at Columbia College, and that this is quite typical of the kind
of professional athlete California turns out. You would have expected
that in a long two-column interview, Mr. Ritchie would have devoted much
of the space to himself, his record, his future plans. Not at all. It
was all about Johnnie Dundee, for whom personally he seems to have an
affectionate friendship and for whose work a rueful and decidedly
humorous appreciation. He analyzed with great sapience the psychological
effect on the audience of Mr. Dundee's ring-system of perpetual motion.
He described with great delight a punch that Mr. Dundee had landed on
the very top of his head. In fact Mr. Dundee's publicity manager could
do no better than to use parts of this interview for advertising
purposes.

I began that last paragraph with the phrase, "A few years ago". But