him. When the young men first stripped in each other's presence,
they eyed each other with a secret surprise. Gerald's slender and
elegant body turned out to be smoothly and gracefully muscled on the
long lines of the Flying Mercury. His bones were small, but his
flesh was hard, and his skin healthy with the flow of blood beneath.
Orde, on the other hand, had earned from the river the torso of an
ancient athlete. The round, full arch of his chest was topped by a
mass of clean-cut muscle; across his back, beneath the smooth skin,
the muscles rippled and ridged and dimpled with every movement; the
beautiful curve of the deltoids, from the point of the shoulder to
the arm, met the other beautiful curve of the unflexed biceps and
that fulness of the back arm so often lacking in a one-sided
development; the surface of the abdomen showed the peculiar
corrugation of the very strong man; the round, columnar neck arose
massive.

"By Jove!" said Gerald, roused at last from his habitual apathy.

"What's the matter?" asked Orde, looking up from tying the rubber-
soled shoes that Gerald had lent him.

"Murphy," called Gerald, "come here."

A very hairy, thick-set, bullet-headed man, the type of semi-
professional "handlers," emerged from somewhere across the
gymnasium.

"Do you think you could down this fellow?" asked Gerald.

Murphy looked Orde over critically.