my club is, don't you?"

"Yes."

"Well, be there at seven for dinner. Tell the butler and the
housekeeper. Mr. Crawford has a box to the fight to-night, and he
thought perhaps you'd like to go along with us."

"A boxing-match?"

"Ten rounds, light-weights; and fast boys, too. Both Irish."

"Really, I shall be glad to go."

"Webb?"

"Yes."

"Never use that word 'really' to me. It's un-Irish."

Thomas heard a chuckle before the receiver at the other end clicked on
the hook. What a father this hearty, kindly, humorous Irishman would
have made for a son!

In London Thomas' amusements had been divided into three classes.
During the season he went to the opera twice, to the music-halls once a
month, to a boxing-match whenever he could spare the shillings. He
belonged to a workingmen's club not far from where he lived; an empty
warehouse, converted into a hall, with a platform in the center, from
which the fervid (and often misinformed) socialists harangued; and in
one corner was a fair gymnasium. Every fortnight, for the sum of a
crown a head, three or four amateur bouts were arranged. Thomas rarely
missed these exhibitions; he seriously considered it a part of his
self-acquired education. What Englishman lives who does not? Brains
and brawn make a man (or a country) invincible.

At seven promptly Thomas called at the club and asked for Mr.
Killigrew. He was shown into the grill, where he was pleasantly
greeted by his host and Crawford and introduced to a young man about
his own age, a Mr. Forbes. Thomas, dressed in his new stag-coat, felt
that he was getting along famously. He had some doubt in regard to his
straw hat, however, till, after dinner, he saw that his companions were
wearing their Panamas.

Forbes, the artist, had reached that blase period when, only upon rare
occasions, did he feel disposed to enlarge his acquaintance. But this
fresh-skinned young Britisher went to his heart at once, a kindred
soul, and he adopted him forthwith. He and Thomas paired off and
talked "fight" all the way to the boxing club.

There was a great crowd pressing about the entrance. There were eddies
of turbulent spirits. A crowd in America is unlike any other. It is
full of meanness, rowdyism, petty malice. A big fellow, smelling of
bad whisky, shouldered Killigrew aside, roughly. Killigrew's Irish
blood flamed.

"Here! Look where you're going!" he cried.

The man reached back and jammed Killigr