Gibbons-Norfolk

Faces black, faces white, 1,300 of them, like a giant's assorted bonbons, lined in neat layers Madison Square Garden, Manhattan. Piled tissues of blue smoke hung over them. In the middle of the smoke, lights glared on a little square wherein a white man, a black man, opposed each other. Tom Gibbons, famed for lasting 15 rounds against Jack Dempsey at Shelby, was fighting Kid Norfolk. Four rounds went by. Black Norfolk bounded, attacked; White Gibbons stepped lightly out, stepped briskly in, drove his fists against the sleek black ribs, the shiny black face. The fifth round came. No longer did the black man attack. Just before the bell rang he fell down on his knees like a bullock. In the sixth round a right to the jaw sent him down again; he lugged himself up, wobbled for a moment, sank to the boards. Referee Tommy Sheridan stopped the bout, lifted high the hand of Thomas Gibbons.