his perfected powers to believe the battle his own, and celebrate it,
as became a victor despising the drubbed antagonist.

In any case, he drank, and a minor man gave him the dog's licking..
'Went into it puffy, came out of it bunged,' the chronicle resounding
over England ran. Old England read of an 'eyeless carcase' heroically
stepping up to time for three rounds of mashing punishment. If he had
won the day after all, the country would have been electrified. It
sympathized on the side of his backers too much to do more than nod a
short approval of his fortitude. To sink with flag flying is next to
sinking the enemy. There was talk of a girl present at the fight, and of
how she received the eyeless, almost faceless, carcase of her sweetheart
Kit, and carried him away in a little donkey-cart, comfortably cushioned
to meet disaster. This petty incident drew the attention of the Earl
of Fleetwood, then beginning to be known as the diamond of uncounted
facets, patron of the pick of all departments of manly activity in
England.

The devotion of the girl Madge to her sweetheart was really a fine
story. Fleetwood touched on it to Mr. Mallard, speaking of it like the
gentleman he could be, while Chumley Potts wagged impatient acquiescence
in a romantic episode of the Ring, that kept the talk from the hotter
theme.

'Money's Bank of England to-day, you think?' he interposed, and had his
answer after Mallard had said:

'The girl 's rather good-looking, too.'

'You may double your bets, Chummy. I had the fellow to his tea at my
dinner-table yesterday evening; locked him in his bedroom, and had him
up and out for a morning spin at six. His trainer, Flipper's on the
field, drove from Esslemont at nine, confident as trumps.'

'Deuce of a good-looking girl,' Potts could now afford to say; and he
sang out: 'Feel fit, lucky dog?'

'Concert pitch!' was the declaration of Kit Ives.

'How about Lord Brailstone's man?'

'Female partner in a quadrille, sir.'

'Ah!' Potts doated on his limbs with a butcher's eye for prize joints.

'Cock-sure has crowed low by sunset,' Mallard observed.

Fleetwood offered him to take his bets.

'You're heavy on it with Brailstone?' said Mallard.

'Three thousand.'

'I'd back you for your luck blindfold.'

A ruffle of sourness shot over the features of the earl, and was noticed
by both eager betters, who exchanged a glance.

Potts inspected his watch, and said half aloud: 'Liver, ten to