"Practice he calls it! If Hammerhead could bust up the Tank, don't you think he would?"
"Hammerhead's an old junkpot, Mich, and you know it!"
"Old he may be, Charlie, but junkpot he's not. Crafty as a damn president of Pugs, Inc., he is, and everybody in the business knows it. He ranks with the best sparrin' partners in the world, he does."
In the ring below something happened that drew a roar of uncontrollable excitement from the crowd. It was over in a flash and nobody saw quite how it happened. Hammerhead Johnny's body described a rigid, dark arc in the air, hovered suspended a second in a completely horizontal position, and then crashed with a hollow boom to the deck. The Hammerhead did not move.
"BEGREE!" howled the delighted Mischa Hannigan. "BEGREE, he's knocked him cold!" He began to dance around the room in a jig that shook his frame with every jolt and pirouette. Charlie Jingle laughed.
"I'll be dammed! The Tank's really got it! He really has got it!"
"Oh, we're rich, we're rich, we're rich!" chanted the hysterical Hannigan, dancing his macabre dance of the human puff-ball. There was a knock at the door and Hannigan, still chanting, danced to the door and opened it. The relaxed puffy flesh drew tight, his back stiffened. Charlie Jingle peered around his girth to see who stood there.
Harry Belok, in a black Homburg and a blue pin-stripe suit, stepped smiling into the room, twirling an ebony cane. He doffed his hat, bowing slightly. Behind him a small man slid in next to the wall, his whole body screwed up tightly into his neck. Hannigan, with a pale, sickly smile, shut the door.
"If it ain't Harry Belok! Hello, Harry."
Harry Belok, smiling, looked straight at Charlie Jingle. "Whadayasay, Hannigan! How's things, Charlie? Long time no see, hah?"