he put up a hand and felt it the
pain was so great that he could barely refrain from uttering a cry.
But, however physically battered he might be, he was feeling happier
and more satisfied with himself than he had felt for years. He had been
beaten, but he had fought his best, and not given in. Some portion of
his self-respect came back to him as he reviewed the late encounter.

Mr Bevan regarded him approvingly.

"He was too heavy for you," he said. "He's a good twelve stone, I make
it. I should put you at ten stone--say ten stone three. Call it nine
stone twelve in condition. But you've got pluck, sir."

Sheen opened his eyes at this surprising statement.

"Some I've met would have laid down after getting that first hit, but
you got up again. That's the secret of fighting. Always keep going on.
Never give in. You know what Shakespeare says about the one who first
cries, 'Hold, enough!' Do you read Shakespeare, sir?"

"Yes," said Sheen.

"Ah, now _he_ knew his business," said Mr Bevan enthusiastically.
"_There_ was ring-craft, as you may say. _He_ wasn't a novice."

Sheen agreed that Shakespeare had written some good things in his time.

"That's what you want to remember. Always keep going on, as the saying
is. I was fighting Dick Roberts at the National--an American, he was,
from San Francisco. He come at me with his right stretched out, and I
think he's going to hit me with it, when blessed if his left don't come
out instead, and, my Golly! it nearly knocked a passage through me.
Just where that fellow hit you, sir, he hit me. It was just at the end
of the round, and I went back to my corner. Jim Blake was seconding me.
'What's this, Jim?' I says, 'is the man mad, or what?' 'Why,' he says,
'he's left-handed, that's what's the matter. Get on top of him.' 'Get
on top of him? I says. 'My Golly, I'll get on top of the roof if he's
going to hit me another of those.' But I kept on, and got close to him,
and he couldn't get in another of them, and he give in after the
seventh round."

"What competition was that?" asked Sheen.

Mr Bevan laughed. "It was a twenty-round contest, sir, for seven-fifty
aside and the Light Weight Championship of the World."

Sheen looked at him in astonishment. He had always imagined
professional pugilists to be bullet-headed and beetle-browed to a man.
He was not prepared for one of Mr Joe Bevan's description. For all the
marks of his profession that he bore on his face, in the shape