love and remember the old-fashioned manhood of England. We are
grown too refined and civilised nowadays for the old rude arbitrament,
and so fair play has ceased to be the Englishman's motto in fighting,
and the English rustic shoots and stabs like the rustic of other
lands. All fighting is foolish, more or less, but we had the manliest,
friendliest, most honourable, and least harmful way of doing it amongst
all the sons of men, and so our Legislature killed out the 'noble art'
from amongst us, and brought us to the general ugly level.

It was in the reign of the Tipton Slasher--which, as people learned in
the history of manners will remember, was a longish time ago--when these
two Britons stood up to arrange their differences after the fashion
then in vogue. There was nobody to see fair play, and so they saw it
for themselves, as all fighting Englishmen did when there was a code of
honour to go by. It was not a mere affair of hammer and tongs, but very
fair scientific fighting, the science vivified by enjoyment, and full of
energy, but never forgotten for a second. The pleasure was keen on both
sides, for from the beginning of their knowledge of each other these two
had been in antagonism, and at the last it was a real treat to let all
go and have at it.

'I was always a bit frivolous, as you said just now, Mr. Thistlewood,'
Lane remarked in the first enforced pause of the combat, 'but I'd like
you to bear me witness that I stick to what I'm at while I'm at it.'

This address was delivered pantingly, whilst the speaker lay flat upon
his back on the grass, with his arms thrown out crosswise. Thistlewood
disdained response, and sat with one great shoulder propped against a
dwarf oak, breathing fast and hard. When this sign of distress had
a little abated, he arose, and said 'Time' as if he had been a mere
cornerman in the affair, and rather bored by it than otherwise. Lane
rolled over on to his face, rose to his hands and knees, smiled at his
adversary for a little while, as if to give him an appetite for the
business in hand, and then got to his feet and made ready.

Now for a man to hold his own at this particular form of fighting
against an equal adversary for a bare five minutes argues five grand
things for him, and these are chastity, temperance, hardihood, strength,
and courage. It speaks well for these admirable qualities in both of
them that Messrs. Thistlewood and Protheroe made a good hour of it. The
advanta