etting out of it. My adversary was bigger than I
was, and evidently far more at home with the customs of the prize-ring.
I would fain have escaped, but what could I do?

Meanwhile the table was hurriedly pushed into a corner of the room and
the chairs piled up in a heap.

"Now then!" cried the Field-Marshal, who, in some miraculous manner, now
appeared as backer to the fellow with whom a few minutes ago he had been
quarrelling--"now then, aren't you ready there?"

"Yes," said Flanagan, rolling up my shirt-sleeves; "all ready! Now
then, old man, straight out from the shoulder, you know. Keep your toes
straight, and guard forward. Now then--there!"

I was in for it then; and, being in for it, the only thing was to go
through with it, and that I determined to do.

My adversary advanced towards me, half prancing, with his hands high,
his elbows out, his face red, and his straw jerking about like a steam-
engine. It might be showy form, I thought, but from the very little I
knew of boxing it was not good. And the closer we approached the more
convinced of this I was, and the more hope I seemed to have of coming
out of the affair creditably.

Now, reader, whoever you are, before I go further I ask you to remember
that I am recording in this book not what I ought to have done, but what
I did do. You will very likely have your own opinions as to what I
should have done under the circumstances. You may think that I should,
at all costs, have declined to fight; you may think I should have
summoned the police; you may think I should have stood with my hands
behind my back till my face was the size of a football, and about the
same colour; or you may think I was right in standing up to hit my man,
and doing all I knew to demolish him. Do not let me embarrass your
judgment; my duty just now is merely to tell you what did happen.

As I expected, Whipcord's idea seemed to be to knock me out of time at
the very beginning of the encounter, and therefore during the first
round I found it needed all my efforts to frustrate this little design,
without attempting on my part to take the offensive.

As it was, I did not altogether succeed, for, Whipcord being taller than
I, I could not help coming in for one or two downward blows, which,
however, thanks to my hard head, seemed more formidable to the
spectators than they really were.

"Not half bad," was Flanagan's encouraging comment when in due time I
retired to his side f