im.

A dreadful thought possessed me that if he could only contrive to hit
me with his face all would be over. My own was badly pounded; for we
fought--or, at any rate, I fought--without the smallest science; it
was blow for blow, plain give-and-take, from the start. But what
distressed me was the extreme tenderness of my knuckles; and what
chiefly irritated me was the behaviour of Doggy Bates, dancing about
and screaming, "Go it, Stimcoes! Stimcoes for ever!" Five times the
onlookers flung him out by the scruff of his neck; and five times he
worked himself back, and screamed it between their legs.

In the end this enthusiasm proved the undoing of all his delight.
Towards the end of an intolerably long round, finding that my arms
began to hang like lead, I had rushed in and closed; and the two of
us went to ground together. Then I lay panting, and my opponent
under me--the pair of us too weary for the moment to strike a blow;
and then, as breath came back, I was aware of a sudden hush in the
din. A hand took me by the shirt-collar, dragged me to my feet, and
swung me round, and I stared, blinking, into the face of Mr. Stimcoe.

"Dishgrashful!" said Mr. Stimcoe. He was accompanied by a constable,
to whom he appealed for confirmation, pointing to my face.
"Left immy charge only this evening, Perf'ly dishgrashful!"

"Boys will be boys, sir," said the constable.

"M' good fellow "--Mr. Stimcoe comprehended the crowd with an
unsteady wave of his hand--"that don't 'pply 'case of men. _Ne tu
pu'ri tempsherish annosh_; tha's Juvenal."

"Then my advice is, sir--take the boy home and give him a wash."

"He can't," came a taunting voice from the crowd. "'Cos why?
The company 've cut off his water."

Mr. Stimcoe gazed around in sorrow rather than in anger. He cleared
his throat for a public speech; but was forestalled by the
constable's dispersing the throng with a "Clear along, now, like good
fellows!"

The wide-mouthed man helped me into my jacket, shook hands with me,
and said I had no science, but the devil's own pluck-and-lights.
Then he, too, faded away into the night; and I found myself alongside
of Doggy Bates, marching up the street after Mr. Stimcoe, who
declaimed, as he went, upon the vulgarity of street-fighting.

By-and-by it became apparent that in the soothing flow of his
eloquence he had forgotten us; and Doggy Bates, who understood his
preceptor's habits to a hair, checked me with a knowing squ