Lay waste his future thus. The world's a chessboard,
And we the merest pawns in fist of Fate.
[_Aloud._] And now, my friends, gentle and simple both,
Our scene draws to a close. In lawful course
As Dorset's deputy lieutenant I
Do pardon all concerned this afternoon
In the late gross and brutal exhibition
Of miscalled sport.

LYDIA [_throwing herself into his arms_]. Your boats
are burnt at last.

CASHEL. This is the face that burnt a thousand boats,
And ravished Cashel Byron from the ring.
But to conclude. Let William Paradise
Devote himself to science, and acquire,
By studying the player's speech in Hamlet,
A more refined address. You, Robert Mellish,
To the Blue Anchor hostelry attend him;
Assuage his hurts, and bid Bill Richardson
Limit his access to the fatal tap.
Now mount we on my backer's four-in-hand,
And to St. George's Church, whose portico
Hanover Square shuts off from Conduit Street,
Repair we all. Strike up the wedding march;
And, Mellish, let thy melodies trill forth
Broad o'er the wold as fast we bowl along.
Give me the post-horn. Loose the flowing rein;
And up to London drive with might and main. [_Exeunt._

NOTE ON MODERN PRIZEFIGHTING

In 1882, when this book was written, prizefighting seemed to be dying
out. Sparring matches with boxing gloves, under the Queensberry rules,
kept pugilism faintly alive; but it was not popular, because the public,
which cares only for the excitement of a strenuous fight, believed then
that the boxing glove made sparring as harmless a contest of pure skill
as a fencing match with buttoned foils. This delusion was supported by
the limitation of the sparring match to boxing. In the prize-ring under
the old rules a combatant might trip, hold, or throw his antagonist; so
that each round finished either with a knockdown blow, which, except
when it is really a liedown blow, is much commoner in fiction than it
was in the ring, or with a visible body-to-body struggle ending in a
fall. In a sparring match all that happens is that a man with a watch in
his hand cries out "Time!" whereupon the two champions prosaically stop
sparring and sit down for a minute's rest and refreshment. The
unaccustomed and inexpert spectator in those days did not appreciate the
severity of the exertion or the risk of getting hurt: he underrated them
as ignorantly as he would ha