Babe and Jenny showed their tickets and passed into the packed fight arena. They could solicit here without running the danger they faced on the streets, of being picked up by the cops. The sides of the arena were four black mountain slopes of human life sprinkled with white dots like a stretched curtain. The canvas of the square roped ring glistened white under a dozen overhead X-ray lamps. The restless spectators were howling and stamping for the bouts to begin. Babe and Jenny, among the last to enter, had aisle seats down front and were instantly recognized by the old-timers of the fight club. Babe gave them all the glad eye and they hailed back with a chorus of familiar whistling and good-natured guying. They knew that the two molls were there for no good reason; that they had plowed in all the extraordinary lusts that bestial men, who love prize-fighting, subjected their paid women to. As they took their chairs, the girls were bombarded with an avalanche of reek.

“Hello there, Babe! You’re lookin’ good, kid, even if you don’t get out of bed much.”

“Hot shot! Here’s the hot-point sisters again!”

The big crowd enjoyed the beltline comedy. The girls were suddenly the center of curious attention and the target of wise-cracks.

“Who are the dames?”

“Couple of overtime mammas doin’ piece work!”

Babe and Jenny passed through the brute barrage of ridicule with accustomed indifference. All the jeering excited them no more than if ice water ran in their veins. In fact, they liked it. Babe was an amazing contrast to the gawky-limbed, criminal-featured, dumb-minded companion at her side—Cokey Jenny. Jenny was a natural stone in the cesspool of that arena.

Babe calmly looked about and studied the faces. There were a half-dozen she recognized as former business acquaintances. There was a face now beaming at her. When had she been with him? Oh, yes, Saturday night. He was the fighter that had won a bout last week and spent his winnings on her. His face was healed now. That’s why she hadn’t immediately recognized him. Babe seldom forgot the faces of her income.