The Champ, having shaken hands with the two contenders, climbed out of the ring and resumed his seat beside Connie Grady, and the fighters rose from their corners as the referee waved them to the centre of the ring for instructions.
Pat, wide-eyed, shook her head unbelievingly.
“Simon, that man with the mask — he... he’s fantastic! Those arms — his gloves are touching his knees!”
“A fascinating example of evolution in reverse,” Simon remarked.
The Masked Angel was indeed a remarkable specimen. With his arms dangling alongside his enormous hairless body he was the very antithesis of the classic conception of an athlete, his sagging breasts and vast pink belly undulating in rolls, billows, and pleats of fat; and though his hips narrowed, wasp-like, to the negligible proportions of a bull gorilla’s, his flabby thighs ballooned out like a pair of mammoth loose-skinned sausages, tapering to a pair of stubby tree-trunk legs.
“A freak,” Pat decided. “He wears that ridiculous mask because he’s a pinhead.”
“But even he can do somebody some good. You’ve got to admit that he makes Hoppy look like a creature of svelte and sprightly beauty.”
“In dis racket, boss,” Hoppy mulled with a heavy concentration of wisdom, “you don’t have to be good-lookin’.” Suddenly he sat up straight and strained forward. “Well, for cryin’ out loud!”
“What’s the matter?” The Saint followed his gaze to the ring.
Hoppy waved a finger the size of a knockwurst in the general direction of the two contestants and their handlers standing in the middle of the ring listening to the referee.