"Siddown, Charlie. Let's talk like reasonable men," he said. Charlie Jingle searched his face for a lie or a trick. Finding none, he went back to the table and sat down. The Commissioner waited a moment, and then said earnestly: "Listen, Jingle. Seventy years ago this country outlawed prize-fighting. It was barbarous, they said. Men shouldn't fight men. Men shouldn't capitalize on other men as if they were animals. Okay. They changed it. Now we got the Pug-Factories. But we also have the same thing that went on before. We have the grifters and the shysters and the fixers operating at full tilt all over the place. There's a few honest guys in the game. I hear you're one of them. All we want is to nail the crooks! We want to bust the Fix Syndicate wide open, get me? Now, if you love the game the way I hear you do--not for the money, but for the smell and the excitement--why won't you help us bust them wide?" Charlie Jingle shook his head. "You got it wrong, Jergen. I know about the fixers. But I never consorted with them. If I did, I could've retired a rich man a long time ago." "Then how about that Saturday night fiasco at the Golum Auditorium? You call that a straight fight?" Charlie Jingle shrugged his shoulders. "All I know is I sent my boy in there. He's a Tank, okay. He's up against the newest fighting machine invented. Okay. He drops him. I'm as much surprised as you. All the odds read against me. I got a rebuilt Tank in the ring. But he flattens one of the flashiest pugs in the business. Sure, I admit, it looks suspicious. Fifteen minutes after the upset, one of the biggest fixers in the game walks into my boy's dressing-room ... But don't forget, I'm the best trainer in the business. I take a chunk of worn out fighting machine and make it over into something that buys me bread and coffee. So maybe I create a freak. How do I know? Maybe I twisted a wire wrong, and my Tank's the toughest thing punching." "You're trying to tell me that fight was on the level, is that it?" "So far as I'm concerned, it's level. So far as you're concerned...." Charlie Jingle shrugged. "How is it you happened to have your boy handy when the other fighter couldn't go on?" asked the Commissioner. "I got my stable a block away from the arena. When I heard about Kid Congo getting smashed up in an auto accident, I called the arena. Before the fight, I had twelve cents in my pocket, a dime of which I used to call the arena. They told me 'Sure, bring him down quick, Charlie'. So there I was...." "So they put your Tank in against the Contender. Just like that?" Jingle snapped his fingers. "Like that." "And Harry Belok had nothing to do with the upset?" "Ask Harry Belok." "Why did he come to see you when the fight was over?" Charlie Jingle laughed. "He come to pay me off...." The Commissioner looked at a sheet of paper on the table in front of him. "Nineteen thousand seven hundred and thirty two dollars worth of pay-off?" Charlie Jingle nodded.