It was past his wits to explain. Endurance of his privation had
snapped in him; or else, which is more likely, this Genius of the Ring
was tempted by his genius on the summit of 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