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ropes into the ring, they howled their appreciation.

    Brant joined me. He was sweating and worried.

    "Okay, let's go," he said. "You first; the rest of us behind you."

    The rest of us consisted of Brant, Waller, Pepi and Benno. I walked down the ramp towards the ring. It was a long walk, and the crowd stood up and yelled ail the way. I wondered bleakly what kind of noise they'd be making on my return trip.

    I reached the ring, ducked under the ropes and went to my corner. The Kid, in a yellow dressing-gown, was clowning in his corner, making out he was bow-legged, and then pretending to throw punches at his handlers. The crowd enjoyed it more than his handlers did.

    I sat down, and Henry began putting on the tapes. The Kid's fat manager stood over me, watching, and breathing whisky and cigar fumes in my face. It was because of his vile breath that I turned my head and looked at the crowd just below me, and it was then that I saw her.

VI

    The announcer, a bald-headed little runt in a white suit a little too big for him, was bawling into a hand mike, but I didn't hear what he was saying. Even when he introduced me Waller had to prod me before I stood up to acknowledge the yells of the crowd.

    I couldn't keep my eyes off the woman who was sitting just below my corner: near enough, if we both stretched out our arms, for us to touch fingers. Even as I waved to the crowd, I continued to stare at her, and she was worth staring at.

    I've seen a good many beautiful women in my time, on the movies and off, but never one like this. Her hair was jet black and glossy, parted in the centre, a thin white line as exact as if it had been drawn with a sharp-edged tool and a ruler in marble. Her eyes were big and black and glittering. Her skin was like alabaster, and her mouth wide and scarlet. She was lean and lovely and hungry-looking.

    Unlike the other women sitting at the ringside, she wasn't wearing an evening gown. She had on an apple-green linen suit, a white silk blouse and no hat. Her shoulders were broad, and to judge from her long, slim legs, she would be above the average height when she stood up. Under that smart, cool and provocative outfit was a shape that drove the fight, Petelli and the rest of the set-up clean out of my mind.

    She was looking up at me, her eyes wide and excited, and we exchanged glances. The look she gave me turned my mouth dry and sent my pulse racing. Even a Trappist monk would have known what that look was saying, and I wasn't a Trappist monk.

    "What's the matter with you?" Waller mumbled as he laced my gloves. "You look like someone's already socked you."

    "Could have," I said, and smiled at her, and she smiled back: an intimate, we-could-havefun-together kind of smile that hit me where I lived.

    I turned to see who she was with: an expensive-looking item in a fawn seersucker suit. He was handsome enough with his dark, wavy hair, his olive complexion and his regular features, but his good looks were marred by his thin, hard mouth and the viciously angry expression in his eyes as he returned my curious stare.

    "Get out there," Waller said, and shoved me to my feet. "The ref's waiting. What's the matter with you?"

    And the referee was waiting, and the Kid was waiting too. I joined them in the middle of the ring.

    "It's all right, chummy," the Kid sneered. "You don't have to hue your corner that long. I ain't going to hit you just yet."

    "All right, boys," the referee said sharply, "let's cut out the funny stuff and get down to business. Now, listen to me . . ."

    He started on the old routine I had heard so often before. While he was talking, I asked myself why she had looked at me like that. I don't claim to know much about women, but I knew that smile was an open invitation.

    "Okay, boys," the referee said when he was through with the routine stuff, "back to your corners, and come out fighting."

    "And, chummy, you'll know you've been in a fight when you leave feet first," the Kid