“Bugs, this is Miss Nicholas, come to see you work out. I have been telling her she's going to have a treat.” And to Sally. “Shake hands with Bugs Butler, ma'am, the coming lightweight champion of the world.”
Mr. Butler's photograph, Sally considered, had flattered him. He was, in the flesh, a singularly repellent young man. There was a mean and cruel curve to his lips and a cold arrogance in his eye; a something dangerous and sinister in the atmosphere he radiated. Moreover, she did not like the way he smirked at her.
However, she exerted herself to be amiable.
“I hope you are going to win, Mr. Butler,” she said.
The smile which she forced as she spoke the words removed the coming champion's doubts, though they had never been serious. He was convinced now that he had made a hit. He always did, he reflected, with the girls. It was something about him. His chest swelled complacently beneath the bath-robe.
“You betcher,” he asserted briefly.
Mr. Burrows looked at his watch.
“Time you were starting, Bugs.”
The coming champion removed his gaze from Sally's face, into which he had been peering in a conquering manner, and cast a disparaging glance at the audience. It was far from being as large as he could have wished, and at least a third of it was composed of non-payers from the newspapers.
“All right,” he said, bored.