Already Glass had been
declared the undisputed champion of the Atlantic Coast, while
Speed on the day previous had wrested from him the championship
of the Mississippi Valley.
"But Mariedetta is dark!" said the college man, as he cut the
cards. "She is almost a mulatto."
"Naw! She's no dinge. She's an Aztec, an' them Aztec's is swell
people. Say, she can play a guitar like a barber!"
"Miss Blake told me she was in love with Carara."
Glass grunted contemptuously. "I've got it on that insurrects
four ways. Why, I'm learning to talk Spanish myself. If he gets
flossy, I'll cross one over his bow." The trainer made a vicious
jab at an imaginary Mexican. "He ain't got a good wallop in him."
Like all New Yorkers, no matter what their station, Lawrence
cherished a provincial contempt for such people as are not of
Manhattan. While he was woefully timid in the presence of
firearms, and the flash of steel reduced him to a panic, he was a
past master at the "manly art," and carried a punch in which he
reposed unlimited faith. The deference with which the cowboys
treated him, their simple, child-like faith in his every
utterance, combined to exaggerate his contempt for them.
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