who couldn't hit
a dint in a pat o' butter, why, it's more than I can swaller.'

'Pooh, man, what are the clothes worth? D'you know that Lord Rufton
alone has five thousand pounds on you? When you jump the ropes on
Wednesday, you'll carry every penny of fifty thousand into the ring. A
pretty thing to turn up with a swollen knee and a story about a
Frenchman!'

'I never thought he'd ha' kicked,' said the Bustler.

'I suppose you expected he'd fight Broughton's rules, and strict P.R.?
Why, you silly, they don't know what fighting is in France.'

'My friends,' said I, sitting up on my bed, 'I do not understand very
much of what you say, but when you speak like that it is foolishness. We
know so much about fighting in France, that we have paid our little
visit to nearly every capital in Europe, and very soon we are coming to
London. But we fight like soldiers, you understand, and not like gamins
in the gutter. You strike me on the head. I kick you on the knee. It is
child's play. But if you will give me a sword, and take another one, I
will show you how we fight over the water.'

They both stared at me in their solid, English way.

'Well, I'm glad you're not dead, mounseer,' said the elder one at last.
'There wasn't much sign of life in you when the Bustler and me carried
you down. That head of yours ain't thick enough to stop the crook of the
hardest hitter in Bristol.'

'He's a game cove, too, and he came for me like a bantam,' said the
other, still rubbing his knee. 'I got my old left-right in, and he went
over as if he had been pole-axed. It wasn't my fault, mounseer. I told
you you'd get pepper if you went on.'

'Well, it's something to say all your life, that you've been handled by
the finest light-weight in England,' said the older man, looking at me
with an expression of congratulation upon his face. 'You've had him at
his best, too--in the pink of condition, and trained by Jim Hunter.'

'I am used to hard knocks,' said I, unbuttoning my tunic, and showing my
two musket wounds. Then I bared my ankle also, and showed the place in
my eye where the guerilla had stabbed me.

'He can take his gruel,' said the Bustler.

'What a glutton he'd have made for the middle-weights,' remarked the
trainer; 'with six months' coaching he'd astonish the fancy. It's a pity
he's got to go back to prison.'

I did not like that last remark at all. I buttoned up my coat and rose
from the bed.

'I must ask you to let me cont