kson to escape the cabman's frivolity.

"Well, I suppose it's a matter of taste--upper-cut or under-cut," Mr.
Clarkson answered, smiling at his seriousness. "Most people, I think,
prefer under-cut."

"Johnson's right upper-cut is described as the piston of an ocean
greyhound making twenty-seven knots," said the man, taking no notice of
the answer, and speaking in awestruck tones. "Do you know, one paper
describes Johnson as the best piece of fighting machinery the world has
ever seen!"

"I thought that was the last _Dreadnought_?" said Mr. Clarkson.

"Perhaps you don't study the literature of the Ring," the other
answered, with cold superiority.

"Oh, indeed I do!" cried Mr. Clarkson eagerly. "It is rather remarkable
what a fascination the art of boxing has frequently exercised upon the
masters of literature. Even the Greeks, in spite of their artistic
reverence for the human body, practised boxing with extreme severity,
and on their statues, you know, we sometimes find a recognised
distortion which they called 'the boxer's ear.' It seems to show that
they hit round rather than straight from the shoulder. The ancient
boxing-gloves were intended, not to diminish, but to increase the
severity of the blow, being made of seven or eight strands of cow-hide,
heavily weighted with iron and lead. There is that fine description of a
prize-fight in Virgil, where the veteran--'the imperturbable colossus'
of his time, I suppose we may call him--almost knocks the life out of
the younger man, and sends him from the contest swinging his head to and
fro, and spitting out teeth mingled with blood--rather a horrible
picture!"

"Ten to six on the boiler-maker," said the cabman; "I'll take ten to
six."

"And then, of course," Mr. Clarkson continued, "in recent times there
are splendid accounts of the fights in _Lavengro_ and Meredith's
_Amazing Marriage_, and Browning once refers to the Tipton Slasher, and
we all know Conan Doyle."

"No, we don't," said the cabman.

"It seems rather hard to explain the attraction of prize-fighting," Mr.
Clarkson went on, meditatively; "perhaps it comes simply from the
dramatic element of battle. It is a war in brief, a concentrated
militancy. Or perhaps it is the more barbaric delight in vicarious pain
and endurance; and I think sometimes we ought to include the pleasure of
our race in fair play and the just and equal rigour of the game."

What other reasons Mr. Clarkson might have found were