Jack’s face was a study. Spottswood had a hand on his shoulder, and Perceval was at his side, while the rest were crowding round, chattering excitedly, and Bismarck was looking about him with all his old bounce and side. It was too much for Jack.

“Right,” says he, shaking Spottswood off. “Put your hands up.”

“No, no,” cries Perceval, “this has gone far enough.”

“I quit to nobody,” says Jack, grim as a hangman. “‘End the bout’, is it? I’ll end it for him, sure enough.”

“For God’s sake, man,” says Perceval. “Remember who you are, and who he is. He’s a guest, a stranger—”

“A stranger who threw me foul,” says old Jack.

“He don’t know the rules.”

“It was a mistake.”

“It was a fair throw.”

“No t’wasn’t.”

Old Jack stood breathing heavily. “Now, look’ee,” says he. “I give it him he threw me not knowing it was an unfair advantage, when I was off guard on account of having tapped his claret. I give it him he was angry and didn’t think, ’cos I’d been making a pudding of him. I’ll shake hands wi’ him on all of that—but I won’t have him strutting off and saying I asked to end the fight. Nobody says that to me—no, not Tom Cribb himself, by God.”

Everyone began to yammer at once, Perceval trying to push them away and calm Jack down, but most of us well content to see the mischief increase—it wasn’t every day one could see Gully box in earnest, which he seemed ready to do. Tom appealed to Bismarck, but the German, smiling his superior smile, just says:

“I am prepared to continue.”

After that, try as Tom might, he was over-ruled, and presently they were facing up to each other again. I was delighted, of course; this was more than I had hoped for, although I feared that Gully’s good nature would make him let Bismarck off lightly. His pride was hurt, but he was a fair-minded fool, and I guessed he would just rap the German once or twice, smartly, to show him who was master, and let it go at that. Perceval was hoping so, at all events. “Go easy, Jack, for God’s sake,” he cried, and then they set to.

I don’t know what Bismarck hoped for. He wasn’t a fool, and Gully had demonstrated already that the German was a child in his hands. I can only suppose that he thought he had a chance of throwing Gully again, and was too damned conceited to escape gratefully. At any rate, he went in swinging both arms, and Jack rapped him over the heart and then cracked him a neat left on the head when he was off balance, which knocked him down.