r best men never got
it out of books. Now, you tell me--you've got a spiflicating style of
talk about you--no brag, you tell me--course, the best man wins, if you
mean that: now, if I was one of 'em, and I fetches you a bit of a flick,
how then? Would you be ready to step out with a real Professor?'

'I should claim a fair field,' was the answer, made in modesty.

'And you'd expect to whop me with they there principles of yours?'

'I should expect to.'

'Bang me!' was roared. After a stare at the mild little figure with the
fitfully dead-levelled large grey eyes in front of him, the pork-butcher
resumed: 'Take you for the man you say you be, you're just the man for my
friend Jam and me. He dearly loves to see a set-to, self the same. What
prettier? And if you would be so obliging some day as to favour us with a
display, we'd head a cap conformably, whether you'd the best of it,
according to your expectations, or t' other way:--For there never was
shame in a jolly good licking as the song says: that is, if you take it
and make it appear jolly good. And find you an opponent meet and fit,
never doubt. Ever had the worse of an encounter, sir?'

'Often, Sir.'

'Well, that's good. And it didn't destroy your confidence?'

'Added to it, I hope.'

At this point, it became a crying necessity for Skepsey to escape from an
area of boastfulness, into which he had fallen inadvertently; and he
hastened to apologize 'for his personal reference,' that was intended for
an illustration of our country caught unawares by a highly trained picked
soldiery, inferior in numbers to the patriotic levies, but sharp at the
edge and knowing how to strike. Measure the axe, measure the tree; and
which goes down first?

'Invasion, is it?--and you mean, we're not to hit back?' the pork-butcher
bellowed, and presently secured a murmured approbation from an audience
of three, that had begun to comprehend the dialogue, and strengthened him
in a manner to teach Skepsey the foolishness of ever urging analogies of
too extended a circle to close sharply on the mark. He had no longer a
chance, he was overborne, identified with the fated invader, rolled away
into the chops of the Channel, to be swallowed up entire, and not a rag
left of him, but John Bull tucking up his shirtsleeves on the shingle
beach, ready for a second or a third; crying to them to come on.

Warmed by his Bullish victory, and friendly to the vanquished, the
pork-butcher told Skeps