him to roam wherever he liked, and to
stay as long as he pleased. Instead of thanking me and using his liberty,
he hesitated, and looked thoroughly ill at ease.

"What's the matter now?" I asked.

"I'm afraid you don't know, sir, who it is you are so kind to. I've been
something else in my time, besides a nurseryman."

"What have you been?"

"A prize-fighter."

If he expected me to exhibit indignation or contempt, he was
disappointed. My ignorance treated him as civilly as ever.

"What is a prize-fighter?" I inquired.

The unfortunate pugilist looked at me in speechless bewilderment. I told
him that I had been brought up among foreigners, and that I had never
even seen an English newspaper for the last ten years. This explanation
seemed to encourage the man of few words: it set him talking freely at
last. He delivered a treatise on the art of prizefighting, and he did
something else which I found more amusing--he told me his name. To my
small sense of humor his name, so to speak, completed this delightfully
odd man: it was Gloody. As to the list of his misfortunes, the endless
length of it became so unendurably droll, that we both indulged in
unfeeling fits of laughter over the sorrows of Gloody. The first lucky
accident of the poor fellow's life had been, literally, the discovery of
him by his present master.

This event interested me. I said I should like to hear how it had
happened.

Gloody modestly described himself as "one of the starving lot, sir, that
looks out for small errands. I got my first dinner for three days, by
carrying a gentleman's portmanteau for him. And he, if you please, was
afterwards my master. He lived alone. Bless you, he was as deaf then as
he is now. He says to me, 'If you bawl in my ears, I'll knock you down.'
I thought to myself, you wouldn't say that, master, if you knew how I was
employed twenty years ago. He took me into his service, sir, because I
was ugly. 'I'm so handsome myself;' he says, 'I want a contrast of
something ugly about me.' You may have noticed that he's a bitter
one--and bitterly enough he sometimes behaved to me. But there's a good
side to him. He gives me his old clothes, and sometimes he speaks almost
as kindly to me as you do. But for him, I believe I should have perished
of starvation--"

He suddenly checked himself. Whether he was afraid of wearying me, or
whether some painful recollection had occurred to him, it was of course
impossible to say.

Th