n the cloisters.
There were no hoops, no cricket-bats, as usual on a half-holiday. Who
would have thought of play in expectation of such tremendous sport as
was in store for us?

Towering among the gown-boys, of whom he was the head and the tyrant,
leaning upon Bushby's arm, and followed at a little distance by many
curious pale awe-stricken boys, dressed in his black silk stockings,
which he always sported, and with a crimson bandanna tied round his
waist, came BIGGS. His nose was swollen with the blow given before
school, but his eyes flashed fire. He was laughing and sneering with
Bushby, and evidently intended to make minced meat of Berry.

The betting began pretty freely: the bets were against poor Berry. Five
to three were offered--in ginger-beer. I took six to four in raspberry
open tarts. The upper boys carried the thing farther still: and I know
for a fact, that Swang's book amounted to four pound three (but he
hedged a good deal), and Tittery lost seventeen shillings in a single
bet to Pitts, who took the odds.

As Biggs and his party arrived, I heard Hawkins say to Berry, "For
heaven's sake, my boy, fib with your right, and MIND HIS LEFT HAND!"

Middle Briars was voted to be too confined a space for the combat, and
it was agreed that it should take place behind the under-school in
the shade, whither we all went. Hawkins, with his immense silver
hunting-watch, kept the time; and water was brought from the pump close
to Notley's the pastrycook's, who did not admire fisticuffs at all on
half-holidays, for the fights kept the boys away from his shop. Gutley
was the only fellow in the school who remained faithful to him, and
he sat on the counter--the great gormandising brute!--eating tarts the
whole day.

This famous fight, as every Slaughter House man knows, lasted for two
hours and twenty-nine minutes, by Hawkins's immense watch. All this time
the air resounded with cries of "Go it, Berry!" "Go it, Biggs!" "Pitch
into him!" "Give it him!" and so on. Shall I describe the hundred and
two rounds of the combat?--No!--It would occupy too much space, and the
taste for such descriptions has passed away. [3]

1st round. Both the combatants fresh, and in prime order. The weight
and inches somewhat on the gown-boy's side. Berry goes gallantly in,
and delivers a clinker on the gown-boy's jaw. Biggs makes play with his
left. Berry down.

*****

4th round. Claret drawn in profusion from the gow