“Oh, let him alone,” said the Saint. “Whitey is watching the Angel, isn’t he? It isn’t exactly a unilateral proposition.”
“Sure,” Mr Thompson agreed with hasty anxiety. “No cause for gettin’ mad, Hoppy. I’m just one of de hired hands.”
Hoppy grunted and proceeded about the business of laying out the hand bandages, adhesive tape, rubber mouthpiece, collodion, ammonia, and other paraphernalia of the modern gladiator.
“You working with Karl, Mushky?” the Saint asked casually as he slipped out of his street clothes.
Thompson shook his head.
“Naw... He... uh... got kicked in the face by a beer-wagon horse. Broke his jaw in two places, I hear.”
Hoppy looked up at him a moment, and broke into a deep guffaw.
“Ya don’t say,” he yakked.
Simon slipped into his dark purple sateen trunks and began to lace his boxing shoes swiftly as Hoppy tore strips of adhesive tape into suitable knuckle strips. Mushky Thompson lounged in his chair with a cigarette dangling from a corner of his mouth until Hoppy had finished taping the Saint’s hands with practised precision, reinforcing the bones without impairing their freedom. Then Mushky got to his feet.
“Good luck,” he threw over his shoulder. “You’ll need it.”