That’s what’s coming to you in one dollar’s worth. The royal order of the K.O., or else a boot you’ll feel for as long as you can sit. Yet he looks a treat. If he could have the yellow bleached out of him, he’d make a bit for a manager, sparring exhibition bouts up West.”
“He would that,” Sumecta said, also in English.
“He’s got the torso of a Greek god, as they say, though which his torso is I never rightly understood.”
“It’s like you would say his physique.”
“The slimy yellow ounce-cat.”
“Heya, Chico,” Sumecta called, “Chico!”
The Carib caught Sumecta’s eye. Sard was watching him at the moment and saw a strange look of fear, or at least anxiety, pass over the savage face. Sumecta opened his mouth and tapped his teeth with his fingers: whatever the sign may have meant, it made Chico smile uneasily.
“Yes,” Sard said to himself, “these two ruffians have bought El Chico to lose the bout, and now that it comes to the point, El Chico is scared of these buck negroes with their razors. The whites will shoot him if he wins, and the coloured men will skin him if he doesn’t. And who is this Mr. Kingsborough who will not have much show, and for whom there will be time enough? I wish that they would say some more about Mr. Bloody Kingsborough.”
Mr. Wiskey suddenly turned round upon Sard. He had his head ducked down so as to avoid giving pain to his boil, and the ducked-down dart of the skull gave the movement something deadly, like the strike of a snake or ferret.
“He’s a treat, sir, for looks, and a beautiful boxer, this Chico, the Carib here,” he said to Sard. “Would you like to have a friendly dollar on him, just to give an interest to the proceedings?”