The boys' muscles rippled as they strutted around the ring. From the women spectators came a long, deep sigh. From that moment, we had half the audience with us—the female half.
"In anatomy," I said, shaking my finger to emphasize the point, "the wingback shifts outward for a lateral. In the words of the great philosopher Hypocritus, the coil should always be kept clean between the barrel and the tap and all excess collar should be removed with a spatula."
Nobody was listening to me; they were looking at the wrestlers, which, of course, was what I'd figured on. Most of the men were comparing the grunters' muscles to their own, and here and there a few were dropping their flowers onto the floor.
I signaled and in a second the boys were an omelet of flying legs. The crowd gasped, then leaned forward intently. The shrieking began when Gordon got a headlock on Zbich. It grew when Zbich flipped Gorgeous with a flying mare. By the time Gordon got in a billygoat butt, the amphitheater sounded like feeding time at the zoo.
But there was another sound, too. Old Whiskers was tottering down the aisle, shrieking, "This is romping! Mere romping!"
I signaled and the boys stopped.
"We need a third man to illustrate the next point," I said. "Perhaps the gentleman in the aisle will volunteer."
Two wrestlers grabbed Old Whiskers and tossed him into the ring. Making fast double talk, I took off his shirt and he stood there, stripped to the waist, blinking in the sun and looking like a dehydrated squab.
The crowd noted the contrast between his scrawniness and the muscles of the wrestlers. A roar of laughter swept it.
"Perhaps," I said, "the gentleman would like to romp."