Hugo wrote his name under a printed statement to the effect that the fight managers were not responsible for the results of the combat. The man who led him to a dressing-room was filled with sympathy and advice. He told Hugo that one glance at Ole would discourage his reckless avarice. But Hugo paid no attention. The room was dirty. It smelled of sweat and rubber sneakers. He sat there for half an hour, reading a newspaper. Outside, somewhere, he could hear the mumble of a gathering crowd, punctuated by the voices of candy and peanut-hawkers.
At last they brought some clothes to him. A pair of trunks that flapped over his loins, ill-fitting canvas shoes, a musty bath robe. When the door of his room opened, the noise of the crowd was louder. Finally it was hushed. He heard the announcer. It was like the voice of a minister coming through the stained windows of a church. It rose and fell. Then the distant note of the gong. After that the crowd called steadily, sometimes in loud rage and sometimes almost in a whisper.
Finally they brought Ole's first victim into Hugo's cell. He was a man with the physique of a bull. His face was cut and his eyes were darkening. One of the men heaving his stretcher looked at Hugo.
"Better beat it, kid, while you can still do it on your own feet. You ain't even got the reach for Ole. He's a grizzly, bo. He'll just about kill you."
Hugo tightened his belt and swung the electric light back and forth with a slow-moving fist. Another man expertly strapped his fists with adhesive tape.
"When do I go out?" Hugo asked.
"You mean, when do you get knocked out?" the second laughed.
"Fight?"
"Well, if you're determined to get croaked, you do it now."
In the arena it was dazzling. A bank of noisy people rose on all sides of him. Hugo walked down the aisle and clambered into the ring. Ole was one of the largest men he had ever seen in his life. There was no doubt of his six feet nine inches and his two hundred and eighty pounds. Hugo imagined that the man was not a scientific fighter. A bruiser. Well, he knew nothing of fighting, either.