THE FIGHT IN THE COACH-HOUSE.
THE curt announcement was followed by a moment of silent surprise, and
then by a general shout of laughter. There might be argument as to who
was champion at each weight; but there could be no question that all the
champions of all the weights were seated round the tables. An audacious
challenge which embraced them one and all, without regard to size or age,
could hardly be regarded otherwise than as a joke—but it was a joke which
might be a dear one for the joker.
“Is this genuine?” asked my uncle.
“Yes, Sir Charles,” answered the landlord; “the man is waiting below.”
“It’s a kid!” cried several of the fighting-men. “Some cove is a
gammonin’ us.”
“Don’t you believe it,” answered the landlord. “He’s a real slap-up
Corinthian, by his dress; and he means what he says, or else I ain’t no
judge of a man.”
My uncle whispered for a few moments with the Prince of Wales. “Well,
gentlemen,” said he, at last, “the night is still young, and if any of
you should wish to show the company a little of your skill, you could not
ask a better opportunity.”
“What weight is he, Bill?” asked Jem Belcher.
“He’s close on six foot, and I should put him well into the thirteen
stones when he’s buffed.”
“Heavy metal!” cried Jackson. “Who takes him on?”
They all wanted to, from nine-stone Dutch Sam upwards. The air was
filled with their hoarse shouts and their arguments why each should be
the chosen one. To fight when they were flushed with wine and ripe for
mischief—above all, to fight before so select a company with the Prince
at the ringside, was a chance which did not often come in their way.
Only Jackson, Belcher, Mendoza, and one or two others of the senior and
more famous men remained silent, thinking it beneath their dignity that
they should condescend to so irregular a bye-battle.
“Well, you can’t all fight him,” remarked Jackson, when the babel had
died away. “It’s for the chairman to choose.”
“Perhaps your Royal Highness has a preference,” said my uncle.
“By Jove, I’d take him on myself if my position was different,” said the
Prince, whose face was growing redder and his eyes more glazed. “You’ve
seen me with the mufflers, Jackson! You know my form!”
“I’ve seen your Royal Highness, and I have felt your Royal Highness,”
said the courtly Jackson.
“Perhaps Jem Belcher would give us an exhibition,” said my uncle.
Belcher smiled and shook his handsome head.
“There’s my brother Tom here has never been blooded in London yet, sir.
He might make a fairer match of it.”
“Give him over to me!” roared Joe Berks. “I’ve been waitin’ for a turn
all evenin’, an’ I’ll fight any man that tries to take my place. ’E’s my
meat, my masters. Leave ’im to me if you want to see ’ow a calf’s ’ead
should be dressed. If you put Tom Belcher before me I’ll fight Tom
Belcher, an’ for that matter I’ll fight Jem Belcher, or Bill Belcher, or
any other Belcher that ever came out of Bristol.”
It was clear that Berks had got to the stage when he must fight some one.
His heavy face was gorged and the veins stood out on his low forehead,
while his fierce grey eyes looked viciously from man to man in quest of a
quarrel. His great red hands were bunched into huge, gnarled fists, and
he shook one of them menacingly as his drunken gaze swept round the
tables.
“I think you’ll agree with me, gentlemen, that Joe Berks would be all the
better for some fresh air and exercise,” said my uncle. “With the
concurrence of His Royal Highness and of the company, I shall select him
as our champion on this occasion.”
“You do me proud,” cried the fellow, staggering to his feet and pulling
at his coat. “If I don’t glut him within the five minutes, may I never
see Shropshire again.”
“Wait a bit, Berks,” cried several of the amateurs. “Where’s it going to
be held?”
“Where you like, masters. I’ll fight him in a sawpit, or on the outside
of a coach if it please you. Put us toe to toe, and leave the rest with
me.”
“They can’t fight here with all this litter,” said my uncle. “Where
shall it be?”
“’Pon my soul, Tregellis,” cried the Prince, “I think our unknown friend
might have a word to say upon that matter. He’ll be vastly ill-used if
you don’t let him have his own choice of conditions.”
“You are right, sir. We must have him up.”
“That’s easy enough,” said the landlord, “for here he comes through the
doorway.”
I glanced round and had a side view of a tall and well-dressed young man
in a long, brown travelling coat and a black felt hat. The next instant
he had turned and I had clutched with both my hands on to Champion
Harrison’s arm.
“Harrison!” I gasped. “It’s Boy Jim!”
And yet somehow the possibility and even the probability of it had
occurred to me from the beginning, and I believe that it had to Harrison
also, for I had noticed that his face grew grave and troubled from the
very moment that there was talk of the stranger below. Now, the instant
that the buzz of surprise and admiration caused by Jim’s face and figure
had died away, Harrison was on his feet, gesticulating in his excitement.
“It’s my nephew Jim, gentlemen,” he cried. “He’s not twenty yet, and
it’s no doing of mine that he should be here.”
“Let him alone, Harrison,” cried Jackson. “He’s big enough to take care
of himself.”
“This matter has gone rather far,” said my uncle. “I think, Harrison,
that you are too good a sportsman to prevent your nephew from showing
whether he takes after his uncle.”
“It’s very different from me,” cried Harrison, in great distress. “But
I’ll tell you what I’ll do, gentlemen. I never thought to stand up in a
ring again, but I’ll take on Joe Berks with pleasure, just to give a bit
o’ sport to this company.”
Boy Jim stepped across and laid his hand upon the prize-fighter’s
shoulder.
“It must be so, uncle,” I heard him whisper. “I am sorry to go against
your wishes, but I have made up my mind, and I must carry it through.”
Harrison shrugged his huge shoulders.
“Jim, Jim, you don’t know what you are doing! But I’ve heard you speak
like that before, boy, and I know that it ends in your getting your way.”
“I trust, Harrison, that your opposition is withdrawn?” said my uncle.
“Can I not take his place?”
“You would not have it said that I gave a challenge and let another carry
it out?” whispered Jim. “This is my one chance. For Heaven’s sake don’t
stand in my way.”
The smith’s broad and usually stolid face was all working with his
conflicting emotions. At last he banged his fist down upon the table.
“It’s no fault of mine!” he cried. “It was to be and it is. Jim, boy,
for the Lord’s sake remember your distances, and stick to out-fightin’
with a man that could give you a stone.”
“I was sure that Harrison would not stand in the way of sport,” said my
uncle. “We are glad that you have stepped up, that we might consult you
as to the arrangements for giving effect to your very sporting
challenge.”
“Whom am I to fight?” asked Jim, looking round at the company, who were
now all upon their feet.
“Young man, you’ll know enough of who you ’ave to fight before you are
through with it,” cried Berks, lurching heavily through the crowd.
“You’ll need a friend to swear to you before I’ve finished, d’ye see?”
Jim looked at him with disgust in every line of his face.
“Surely you are not going to set me to fight a drunken man!” said he.
“Where is Jem Belcher?”
“My name, young man.”
“I should be glad to try you, if I may.”
“You must work up to me, my lad. You don’t take a ladder at one jump,
but you do it rung by rung. Show yourself to be a match for me, and I’ll
give you a turn.”
“I’m much obliged to you.”
“And I like the look of you, and wish you well,” said Belcher, holding
out his hand. They were not unlike each other, either in face or figure,
though the Bristol man was a few years the older, and a murmur of
critical admiration was heard as the two tall, lithe figures, and keen,
clean-cut faces were contrasted.
“Have you any choice where the fight takes place?” asked my uncle.
“I am in your hands, sir,” said Jim.
“Why not go round to the Five’s Court?” suggested Sir John Lade.
“Yes, let us go to the Five’s Court.”
But this did not at all suit the views of the landlord, who saw in this
lucky incident a chance of reaping a fresh harvest from his spendthrift
company.
“If it please you,” he cried, “there is no need to go so far. My
coach-house at the back of the yard is empty, and a better place for a
mill you’ll never find.”
There was a general shout in favour of the coach-house, and those who
were nearest the door began to slip through, in the hope of scouring the
best places. My stout neighbour, Bill Warr, pulled Harrison to one side.
“I’d stop it if I were you,” he whispered.
“I would if I could. It’s no wish of mine that he should fight. But
there’s no turning him when once his mind is made up.” All his own
fights put together had never reduced the pugilist to such a state of
agitation.
“Wait on ’im yourself, then, and chuck up the sponge when things begin to
go wrong. You know Joe Berks’s record?”
“He’s since my time.”
“Well, ’e’s a terror, that’s all. It’s only Belcher that can master ’im.
You see the man for yourself, six foot, fourteen stone, and full of the
devil. Belcher’s beat ’im twice, but the second time ’e ’ad all ’is work
to do it.”
“Well, well, we’ve got to go through with it. You’ve not seen Boy Jim
put his mawleys up, or maybe you’d think better of his chances. When he
was short of sixteen he licked the Cock of the South Downs, and he’s come
on a long way since then.”
The company was swarming through the door and clattering down the stair,
so we followed in the stream. A fine rain was falling, and the yellow
lights from the windows glistened upon the wet cobblestones of the yard.
How welcome was that breath of sweet, damp air after the fetid atmosphere
of the supper-room. At the other end of the yard was an open door
sharply outlined by the gleam of lanterns within, and through this they
poured, amateurs and fighting-men jostling each other in their eagerness
to get to the front. For my own part, being a smallish man, I should
have seen nothing had I not found an upturned bucket in a corner, upon
which I perched myself with the wall at my back.
It was a large room with a wooden floor and an open square in the
ceiling, which was fringed with the heads of the ostlers and stable boys
who were looking down from the harness-room above. A carriage-lamp was
slung in each corner, and a very large stable-lantern hung from a rafter
in the centre. A coil of rope had been brought in, and under the
direction of Jackson four men had been stationed to hold it.
“What space do you give them?” asked my uncle.
“Twenty-four, as they are both big ones, sir.”
“Very good, and half-minutes between rounds, I suppose? I’ll umpire if
Sir Lothian Hume will do the same, and you can hold the watch and
referee, Jackson.”
With great speed and exactness every preparation was rapidly made by
these experienced men. Mendoza and Dutch Sam were commissioned to attend
to Berks, while Belcher and Jack Harrison did the same for Boy Jim.
Sponges, towels, and some brandy in a bladder were passed over the heads
of the crowd for the use of the seconds.
“Here’s our man,” cried Belcher. “Come along, Berks, or we’ll go to
fetch you.”
Jim appeared in the ring stripped to the waist, with a coloured
handkerchief tied round his middle. A shout of admiration came from the
spectators as they looked upon the fine lines of his figure, and I found
myself roaring with the rest. His shoulders were sloping rather than
bulky, and his chest was deep rather than broad, but the muscle was all
in the right place, rippling down in long, low curves from neck to
shoulder, and from shoulder to elbow. His work at the anvil had
developed his arms to their utmost, and his healthy country living gave a
sleek gloss to his ivory skin, which shone in the lamplight. His
expression was full of spirit and confidence, and he wore a grim sort of
half-smile which I had seen many a time in our boyhood, and which meant,
I knew, that his pride had set iron hard, and that his senses would fail
him long before his courage.
Joe Berks in the meanwhile had swaggered in and stood with folded arms
between his seconds in the opposite corner. His face had none of the
eager alertness of his opponent, and his skin, of a dead white, with
heavy folds about the chest and ribs, showed, even to my inexperienced
eyes, that he was not a man who should fight without training. A life of
toping and ease had left him flabby and gross. On the other hand, he was
famous for his mettle and for his hitting power, so that, even in the
face of the advantages of youth and condition, the betting was three to
one in his favour. His heavy-jowled, clean-shaven face expressed
ferocity as well as courage, and he stood with his small, blood-shot eyes
fixed viciously upon Jim, and his lumpy shoulders stooping a little
forwards, like a fierce hound training on a leash.
The hubbub of the betting had risen until it drowned all other sounds,
men shouting their opinions from one side of the coach-house to the
other, and waving their hands to attract attention, or as a sign that
they had accepted a wager. Sir John Lade, standing just in front of me,
was roaring out the odds against Jim, and laying them freely with those
who fancied the appearance of the unknown.
“I’ve seen Berks fight,” said he to the Honourable Berkeley Craven. “No
country hawbuck is going to knock out a man with such a record.”
“He may be a country hawbuck,” the other answered, “but I have been
reckoned a judge of anything either on two legs or four, and I tell you,
Sir John, that I never saw a man who looked better bred in my life. Are
you still laying against him?”
“Three to one.”
“Have you once in hundreds.”
“Very good, Craven! There they go! Berks! Berks! Bravo! Berks!
Bravo! I think, Craven, that I shall trouble you for that hundred.”
The two men had stood up to each other, Jim as light upon his feet as a
goat, with his left well out and his right thrown across the lower part
of his chest, while Berks held both arms half extended and his feet
almost level, so that he might lead off with either side. For an instant
they looked each other over, and then Berks, ducking his head and rushing
in with a handover-hand style of hitting, bored Jim down into his corner.
It was a backward slip rather than a knockdown, but a thin trickle of
blood was seen at the corner of Jim’s mouth. In an instant the seconds
had seized their men and carried them back into their corners.
“Do you mind doubling our bet?” said Berkeley Craven, who was craning his
neck to get a glimpse of Jim.
“Four to one on Berks! Four to one on Berks!” cried the ringsiders.
“The odds have gone up, you see. Will you have four to one in hundreds?”
“Very good, Sir John.”
“You seem to fancy him more for having been knocked down.”
“He was pushed down, but he stopped every blow, and I liked the look on
his face as he got up again.”
“Well, it’s the old stager for me. Here they come again! He’s got a
pretty style, and he covers his points well, but it isn’t the best
looking that wins.”
They were at it again, and I was jumping about upon my bucket in my
excitement. It was evident that Berks meant to finish the battle
off-hand, whilst Jim, with two of the most experienced men in England to
advise him, was quite aware that his correct tactics were to allow the
ruffian to expend his strength and wind in vain. There was something
horrible in the ferocious energy of Berks’s hitting, every blow fetching
a grunt from him as he smashed it in, and after each I gazed at Jim, as I
have gazed at a stranded vessel upon the Sussex beach when wave after
wave has roared over it, fearing each time that I should find it
miserably mangled. But still the lamplight shone upon the lad’s clear,
alert face, upon his well-opened eyes and his firm-set mouth, while the
blows were taken upon his forearm or allowed, by a quick duck of the
head, to whistle over his shoulder. But Berks was artful as well as
violent. Gradually he worked Jim back into an angle of the ropes from
which there was no escape, and then, when he had him fairly penned, he
sprang upon him like a tiger. What happened was so quick that I cannot
set its sequence down in words, but I saw Jim make a quick stoop under
the swinging arms, and at the same instant I heard a sharp, ringing
smack, and there was Jim dancing about in the middle of the ring, and
Berks lying upon his side on the floor, with his hand to his eye.
How they roared! Prize-fighters, Corinthians, Prince, stable-boy, and
landlord were all shouting at the top of their lungs. Old Buckhorse was
skipping about on a box beside me, shrieking out criticisms and advice in
strange, obsolete ring-jargon, which no one could understand. His dull
eyes were shining, his parchment face was quivering with excitement, and
his strange musical call rang out above all the hubbub. The two men were
hurried to their corners, one second sponging them down and the other
flapping a towel in front of their face; whilst they, with arms hanging
down and legs extended, tried to draw all the air they could into their
lungs in the brief space allowed them.
“Where’s your country hawbuck now?” cried Craven, triumphantly. “Did
ever you witness anything more masterly?”
“He’s no Johnny Raw, certainly,” said Sir John, shaking his head. “What
odds are you giving on Berks, Lord Sole?”
“Two to one.”
“I take you twice in hundreds.”
“Here’s Sir John Lade hedging!” cried my uncle, smiling back at us over
his shoulder.
“Time!” said Jackson, and the two men sprang forward to the mark again.
This round was a good deal shorter than that which had preceded it.
Berks’s orders evidently were to close at any cost, and so make use of
his extra weight and strength before the superior condition of his
antagonist could have time to tell. On the other hand, Jim, after his
experience in the last round, was less disposed to make any great
exertion to keep him at arms’ length. He led at Berks’s head, as he came
rushing in, and missed him, receiving a severe body blow in return, which
left the imprint of four angry knuckles above his ribs. As they closed
Jim caught his opponent’s bullet head under his arm for an instant, and
put a couple of half-arm blows in; but the prize-fighter pulled him over
by his weight, and the two fell panting side by side upon the ground.
Jim sprang up, however, and walked over to his corner, while Berks,
distressed by his evening’s dissipation, leaned one arm upon Mendoza and
the other upon Dutch Sam as he made for his seat.
“Bellows to mend!” cried Jem Belcher. “Where’s the four to one now?”
“Give us time to get the lid off our pepper-box,” said Mendoza. “We mean
to make a night of it.”
“Looks like it,” said Jack Harrison. “He’s shut one of his eyes already.
Even money that my boy wins it!”
“How much?” asked several voices.
“Two pound four and threepence,” cried Harrison, counting out all his
worldly wealth.
“Time!” said Jackson once more.
They were both at the mark in an instant, Jim as full of sprightly
confidence as ever, and Berks with a fixed grin upon his bull-dog face
and a most vicious gleam in the only eye which was of use to him. His
half-minute had not enabled him to recover his breath, and his huge,
hairy chest was rising and falling with a quick, loud panting like a
spent hound. “Go in, boy! Bustle him!” roared Harrison and Belcher.
“Get your wind, Joe; get your wind!” cried the Jews. So now we had a
reversal of tactics, for it was Jim who went in to hit with all the
vigour of his young strength and unimpaired energy, while it was the
savage Berks who was paying his debt to Nature for the many injuries
which he had done her. He gasped, he gurgled, his face grew purple in
his attempts to get his breath, while with his long left arm extended and
his right thrown across, he tried to screen himself from the attack of
his wiry antagonist. “Drop when he hits!” cried Mendoza. “Drop and have
a rest!”
But there was no shyness or shiftiness about Berks’s fighting. He was
always a gallant ruffian, who disdained to go down before an antagonist
as long as his legs would sustain him. He propped Jim off with his long
arm, and though the lad sprang lightly round him looking for an opening,
he was held off as if a forty-inch bar of iron were between them. Every
instant now was in favour of Berks, and already his breathing was easier
and the bluish tinge fading from his face. Jim knew that his chance of a
speedy victory was slipping away from him, and he came back again and
again as swift as a flash to the attack without being able to get past
the passive defence of the trained fighting-man. It was at such a moment
that ringcraft was needed, and luckily for Jim two masters of it were at
his back.
“Get your left on his mark, boy,” they shouted, “then go to his head with
the right.”
Jim heard and acted on the instant. Plunk! came his left just where his
antagonist’s ribs curved from his breast-bone. The force of the blow was
half broken by Berks’s elbow, but it served its purpose of bringing
forward his head. Spank! went the right, with the clear, crisp sound of
two billiard balls clapping together, and Berks reeled, flung up his
arms, spun round, and fell in a huge, fleshy heap upon the floor. His
seconds were on him instantly, and propped him up in a sitting position,
his head rolling helplessly from one shoulder to the other, and finally
toppling backwards with his chin pointed to the ceiling. Dutch Sam
thrust the brandy-bladder between his teeth, while Mendoza shook him
savagely and howled insults in his ear, but neither the spirits nor the
sense of injury could break into that serene insensibility. “Time!” was
duly called, and the Jews, seeing that the affair was over, let their
man’s head fall back with a crack upon the floor, and there he lay, his
huge arms and legs asprawl, whilst the Corinthians and fighting-men
crowded past him to shake the hand of his conqueror.
For my part, I tried also to press through the throng, but it was no easy
task for one of the smallest and weakest men in the room. On all sides
of me I heard a brisk discussion from amateurs and professionals of Jim’s
performance and of his prospects.
“He’s the best bit of new stuff that I’ve seen since Jem Belcher fought
his first fight with Paddington Jones at Wormwood Scrubbs four years ago
last April,” said Berkeley Craven. “You’ll see him with the belt round
his waist before he’s five-and-twenty, or I am no judge of a man.”
“That handsome face of his has cost me a cool five hundred,” grumbled Sir
John Lade. “Who’d have thought he was such a punishing hitter?”
“For all that,” said another, “I am confident that if Joe Berks had been
sober he would have eaten him. Besides, the lad was in training, and the
other would burst like an overdone potato if he were hit. I never saw a
man so soft, or with his wind in such condition. Put the men in
training, and it’s a horse to a hen on the bruiser.”
Some agreed with the last speaker and some were against him, so that a
brisk argument was being carried on around me. In the midst of it the
Prince took his departure, which was the signal for the greater part of
the company to make for the door. In this way I was able at last to
reach the corner where Jim had just finished his dressing, while Champion
Harrison, with tears of joy still shining upon his cheeks, was helping
him on with his overcoat.
“In four rounds!” he kept repeating in a sort of an ecstasy. “Joe Berks
in four rounds! And it took Jem Belcher fourteen!”
“Well, Roddy,” cried Jim, holding out his hand, “I told you that I would
come to London and make my name known.”
“It was splendid, Jim!”
“Dear old Roddy! I saw your white face staring at me from the corner.
You are not changed, for all your grand clothes and your London friends.”
“It is you who are changed, Jim,” said I; “I hardly knew you when you
came into the room.”
“Nor I,” cried the smith. “Where got you all these fine feathers, Jim?
Sure I am that it was not your aunt who helped you to the first step
towards the prize-ring.”
“Miss Hinton has been my friend—the best friend I ever had.”
“Humph! I thought as much,” grumbled the smith. “Well, it is no doing
of mine, Jim, and you must bear witness to that when we go home again. I
don’t know what—but, there, it is done, and it can’t be helped. After
all, she’s—Now, the deuce take my clumsy tongue!”
I could not tell whether it was the wine which he had taken at supper or
the excitement of Boy Jim’s victory which was affecting Harrison, but his
usually placid face wore a most disturbed expression, and his manner
seemed to betray an alternation of exultation and embarrassment. Jim
looked curiously at him, wondering evidently what it was that lay behind
these abrupt sentences and sudden silences. The coach-house had in the
mean time been cleared; Berks with many curses had staggered at last to
his feet, and had gone off in company with two other bruisers, while Jem
Belcher alone remained chatting very earnestly with my uncle.
“Very good, Belcher,” I heard my uncle say.
“It would be a real pleasure to me to do it, sir,” and the famous
prize-fighter, as the two walked towards us.
“I wished to ask you, Jim Harrison, whether you would undertake to be my
champion in the fight against Crab Wilson of Gloucester?” said my uncle.
“That is what I want, Sir Charles—to have a chance of fighting my way
upwards.”
“There are heavy stakes upon the event—very heavy stakes,” said my uncle.
“You will receive two hundred pounds, if you win. Does that satisfy
you?”
“I shall fight for the honour, and because I wish to be thought worthy of
being matched against Jem Belcher.”
Belcher laughed good-humouredly.
“You are going the right way about it, lad,” said he. “But you had a
soft thing on to-night with a drunken man who was out of condition.”
“I did not wish to fight him,” said Jim, flushing.
“Oh, I know you have spirit enough to fight anything on two legs. I knew
that the instant I clapped eyes on you; but I want you to remember that
when you fight Crab Wilson, you will fight the most promising man from
the west, and that the best man of the west is likely to be the best man
in England. He’s as quick and as long in the reach as you are, and he’ll
train himself to the last half-ounce of tallow. I tell you this now,
d’ye see, because if I’m to have the charge of you—”
“Charge of me!”
“Yes,” said my uncle. “Belcher has consented to train you for the coming
battle if you are willing to enter.”
“I am sure I am very much obliged to you,” cried Jim, heartily. “Unless
my uncle should wish to train me, there is no one I would rather have.”
“Nay, Jim; I’ll stay with you a few days, but Belcher knows a deal more
about training than I do. Where will the quarters be?”
“I thought it would be handy for you if we fixed it at the George, at
Crawley. Then, if we have choice of place, we might choose Crawley Down,
for, except Molesey Hurst, and, maybe, Smitham Bottom, there isn’t a spot
in the country that would compare with it for a mill. Do you agree with
that?”
“With all my heart,” said Jim.
“Then you’re my man from this hour on, d’ye see?” said Belcher. “Your
food is mine, and your drink is mine, and your sleep is mine, and all
you’ve to do is just what you are told. We haven’t an hour to lose, for
Wilson has been in half-training this month back. You saw his empty
glass to-night.”
“Jim’s fit to fight for his life at the present moment,” said Harrison.
“But we’ll both come down to Crawley to-morrow. So good night, Sir
Charles.”
“Good night, Roddy,” said Jim. “You’ll come down to Crawley and see me
at my training quarters, will you not?”
And I heartily promised that I would.
“You must be more careful, nephew,” said my uncle, as we rattled home in
his model _vis-à-vis_. “_En première jeunesse_ one is a little inclined
to be ruled by one’s heart rather than by one’s reason. Jim Harrison
seems to be a most respectable young fellow, but after all he is a
blacksmith’s apprentice, and a candidate for the prize-ring. There is a
vast gap between his position and that of my own blood relation, and you
must let him feel that you are his superior.”
“He is the oldest and dearest friend that I have in the world, sir,” I
answered. “We were boys together, and have never had a secret from each
other. As to showing him that I am his superior, I don’t know how I can
do that, for I know very well that he is mine.”
“Hum!” said my uncle, drily, and it was the last word that he addressed
to me that night.