two men stood face to face under the full glare
of the gas-lamps--one was Guy Livingstone; the other a denizen of the
Potteries, yclept "Burn's Big 'un," who had selected B---- as his
training quarters, in preparation for his fight to come off in the
ensuing week with the third best man in England for L100 a side.

They made a magnificent contrast. Guy, apparently quite composed, but
the lower part of his face set stern and pitiless; an evil light in his
eyes, showing how all the gladiator in his nature was roused; his left
hand swaying level with his hip; all the weight of his body resting on
the right foot; his lofty head thrown back haughtily; his guard low. The
professional, three inches shorter than his adversary, but a rare model
of brute strength; his arms and neck, where the short jersey left them
exposed, clear-skinned and white as a woman's, through the perfection of
his training; his hair cropped close round a low, retreating forehead;
his thick lips parted in a savage grin, meant to represent a smile of
confidence. So they stood there--fitting champions of the races that
have been antagonistic for four thousand years--Patrician and
Proletarian.

Suddenly there was a commotion at one corner of the ring, and I saw a
small, bullet-headed man, with a voice like a fractious child, striving
frantically to force his way through. "Don't let 'em fight!" he
screamed: "it's robbery, I tell you. There's hundreds of pounds on him
for Thursday next, I'm his trainer; and I daren't show him with a
scratch on him."

A great roar of laughter answered his entreaties, and twenty arms thrust
the little man back; but his interesting charge seemed to ponder and
hesitate, when a drawling nasal voice spoke from the opposite corner:
"Ah! you're right; take him away; don't show his white feather till
you're druv to it." That turned the wavering scale. The Big 'un ground
his teeth with blasphemy, and set-to.

I need not go through the minutiae of the fight; it was all one way. The
professional did his best, and took his punishment like a glutton; but
he could do nothing against the long reach of his adversary, who stopped
and countered as coolly as if he had only the gloves on.

It was the beginning of the sixth round; our champion bore only one
mark, showing where a tremendous right-hander had almost come home--a
cut on his lower lip, whence the bright Norman blood was flowing freely.
I will not attempt to describe the hideous ch