and narrower streets, came at last on one quieter than
the others, which ended abruptly at the river.

It was a quiet street, save at one point, and that was where a blaze of
gas (then recently introduced, and a great object of curiosity to the
Major) was thrown across the street, from the broad ornamented windows
of a flash public-house. Here there was noise enough. Two men fighting,
and three or four more encouraging, while a half-drunken woman tried to
separate them. From the inside, too, came a noise of singing,
quarrelling, and swearing, such as made the Major cross the road, and
take his way on the darker side of the street.

But when he got opposite the aforesaid public-house, he saw that it was
called the "Nag's Head," and that it was kept by one J. Trotter. "What
an awful place to take that girl to!" said the Major. "But there may be
some private entrance, and a quiet part of the house set by for a
hotel." Nevertheless, having looked well about him, he could see
nothing of the sort, and perceived that he must storm the bar.

But he stood irresolute for a moment. It looked such a very low place,
clean and handsome enough, but still the company about the door looked
so very disreputable. "J. Trotter!" he reflected. "Why, that must be
Trotter the fighting-man. I hope it may be; he will remember me."

So he crossed. When he came within the sphere of the gas lamps, those
who were assisting at the fight grew silent, and gazed upon him with
open eyes. As he reached the door one of them remarked, with a little
flourish of oaths as a margin or garland round his remark, that "of all
the swells he'd ever seen, that 'un was the biggest, at all events."

Similarly, when they in the bar saw that giant form, the blue coat and
brass buttons, and, above all, the moustache (sure sign of a military
man in those days), conversation ceased, and the Major then and there
became the event of the evening. He looked round as he came in, and,
through a door leading inwards, he saw George Hawker himself, standing
talking to a man with a dog under each arm.

The Major was not deceived as to the identity of J. Trotter. J.
Trotter, the hero of a hundred fights, stood himself behind his own
bar, a spectacle for the gods. A chest like a bull, a red neck,
straight up and down with the back of his head, and a fist like a
seal's flipper, proclaimed him the prize-fighter; and his bright grey
eye, and ugly laughing face, proclaimed him the mer