e
certainty, after he has been a month at school, that he is sure to have
a fight, and with almost equal certainty that he will have but one. Tom
Brown was one of these; and as it is our well-weighed intention to give
a full, true, and correct account of Tom's only single combat with a
school-fellow in the manner of our old friend _Bell's Life,_ let those
young persons whose stomachs are not strong, or who think a good set-to
with the weapons which God has given us all, an uncivilized,
unchristian, or ungentlemanly affair, just skip this chapter at once,
for it won't be to their taste.

It was not at all usual in those days for two School-house boys to have
a fight. Of course there were exceptions, when some cross-grained
hard-headed fellow came up who would never be happy unless he was
quarrelling with his nearest neighbours, or when there was some
class-dispute, between the fifth-form and the fags for instance, which
required blood-letting; and a champion was picked out on each side
tacitly, who settled the matter by a good hearty mill. But for the most
part the constant use of those surest keepers of the peace, the
boxing-gloves, kept the School-house boys from fighting one another. Two
or three nights in every week the gloves were brought out, either in the
hall or fifth-form room; and every boy who was ever likely to fight at
all knew all his neighbours' prowess perfectly well, and could tell to a
nicety what chance he would have in a stand-up fight with any other boy
in the house. But of course no such experience could be gotten as
regarded boys in other houses; and as most of the other houses were more
or less jealous of the School-house, collisions were frequent.

After all, what would life be without fighting, I should like to know?
From the cradle to the grave, fighting, rightly understood, is the
business, the real, highest, honestest business of every son of man.
Every one who is worth his salt has his enemies, who must be beaten, be
they evil thoughts and habits in himself, or spiritual wickedness in
high places, or Russians, or Border-ruffians, or Bill, Tom, or Harry,
who will not let him live his life in quiet till he has thrashed them.

It is no good for Quakers, or any other body of men, to uplift their
voices against fighting. Human nature is too strong for them, and they
don't follow their own precepts. Every soul of them is doing his own
piece of fighting, somehow and somewhere. The world might be