society the ... how did you put it? ... the strong,
intelligent, aggressive, cunning or ruthless could work their way to
the top. You've tried strength, intelligence, and aggressiveness,
haven't you, Joe? They didn't work. At least, not fast enough. So now
you're giving cunning a try. Will ruthlessness be next, Joe Mauser?"

He was saved an answer.

A hulking body in evening wear stood next to their table, swaying. Joe
looked up into a face glazed by either trank or alcohol. He didn't
know the other man and for a moment failed to realize the other's
purpose. The man was mumbling something that didn't come through.

Joe, irritated, said, "What in Zen do you want?"

The stranger shook his head, as though to clear it. He sneered, "The
famous Joe Mauser, eh? The brave soldier-boy. Well, lemme tell you
something, soldier-boy, you don't look so tough to me with your cute
little mustache and your fancy-pants uniform. You look like a molly to
me."

"That's too bad," Joe bit out. "And now, if you'll just go away." He
turned his face from the other.

"Joe...!" Nadine said in an alarmed warning.

The other's contemptuous cuff, unsuspected, nearly bowled Joe
completely from his chair. As it was, he barely caught himself.

His attacker shuffled backward and Joe recognized the trained step of
the professional boxer. The other's identity now came to him, although
he was no follower of pugilism, a sport largely out of favor since the
rapid growth of Telly scanned fracases. Boxing at its top had never
been more than an inadequate replacement of the games once held in the
Roman area.

Joe was on his feet, instantly the fighting man under attack. The
table that he and Nadine occupied was a ringside one, and in open view
of half the room, but that meant nothing. He was under attack and for
the nonce surprised, on the defensive.

"How'd you like them apples, soldier-boy?" the professional pugilist
chuckled nastily. His left flicked forward and Joe barely avoided its
connecting with his face.

He threw aside, for the time, any attempt to explain the other's
uncalled for aggression. Unless he did something, and quick, he was
going to be a laughing stock, rather than the hero into which Freddy
Soligen was trying to build him.

Nadine said, Anxiously, "Joe ... please ... the waiters will deal
with--".

He didn't hear her.

Joe Mauser, with all his hospital studies, had never heard of the
Marquis of Queensbury. But even if he