themselves to the ministrations of their respective seconds.

Trooper Herbert Hawker violently chafed Dam's legs, Trooper Bear his
arms and chest, while Trooper Goate struggled to force a pair of new
boxing-gloves upon his hands, which were scientifically bandaged
around knuckles, back, and wrist, against untimely dislocations and
sprains.

Clean water was poured into the bowls which stood behind each chair,
and fresh resin was sprinkled over the canvas-covered boards of the
Ring.

Men whose favourite "carried their money" (and each carried a good
deal) anxiously studied that favourite's opponent.

The Queen's Greys beheld a gorilla indeed, a vast, square, long-armed
hairy monster, with the true pugilist face and head.

"Wot a werry ugly bloke," observed Seaman Arthur Andrews to Seaman
Henry Smith. "'E reminds me o' Hadmiral Sir Percy 'Opkinton, so 'e do.
P'raps 'e's a pore relation."

"Yus," agreed Seaman Smith. "A crost between our beloved 'Oppy an' ole
Bill Jones 'ere. Bill was reported to 'ave 'ad a twin brother--but it
was allus serposed Bill ate 'im when 'e wasn' lookin'."

The backers of Corporal Dowdall were encouraged at seeing a man who
looked like a gentleman and bore none of the traditional marks of the
prize-fighter. His head was not cropped to the point of bristly
baldness, his nose was unbroken, his eyes well opened and unblackened,
his ears unthickened, his body untattooed. He had the white skin,
small trim moustache, high-bred features, small extremities, and
general appearance and bearing of an officer.

Ho, G'rilla Dowdall would make short work of _that_ tippy young toff.
Why, look at him!

And indeed it made you shudder to think of that enormous ferocity,
that dynamic truculence, doing its best to destroy you in a space
twenty-four feet square.

Let the challenger wait till G'rilla put his fighting face on--fair
terrifyin'.

Not an Artilleryman but felt sure that the garrison-gunner would
successfully defend the title and "give the swankin' Queen's Greys
something to keep them _choop_[25] for a bit. Gettin' above 'emselves
they was, becos' this bloke of theirs had won Best Man-at-Arms and had
the nerve to challenge G'rilla Dowdall, R.G.A."

Even the R.H.A. admitted the R.G.A. to terms of perfect equality on
that great occasion.

But a few observant and experienced officers, gymnasium instructors,
and ancient followers of the Noble Art were not so sure.

"Put steel-and-whalebone ag