and also gave
private lessons in the art of self-defence. Bank Side was not out of
bounds, but it was strictly against the rules for any boy to enter a
public-house; nevertheless, a good many of the Westminster boys had
learned boxing from this worthy. There was a private entrance behind the
house into what Perkins called his "saloon," and the boys strove to
consider that by using this they avoided an infringement of the rule.
The fact of their taking lessons was unknown to the master, for indeed
at Westminster the boys were at perfect liberty to do as they pleased
out of school-time, providing that they did not go out of bounds.

The rules enforcing attendance at fields or water, of abstaining from
entering public-houses, and generally of conducting themselves as
gentlemen, were left to what may be called their own police, the senior
Queen's Scholars and the Sixth Form town boys, and these kept a far
more rigorous hand over the younger boys than the masters could possibly
have done. A vigorous thrashing was the punishment for shirking fields,
or for any action regarded as caddish; and it was therefore only the
Upper 'Shells' and Sixth, who, being free from the operation of the law
as to fields and water, were able to frequent Perkins's establishment.

Of those who went there, most of them did so for the genuine purpose of
learning boxing; but a few used the place for the purpose of smoking and
drinking. But these did so at hours when there was no chance of finding
Perkins at work with his pupils, for public feeling would not have
tolerated, even in an upper form boy, anything that would have been
looked upon as such bad form.

The next morning, after breakfast, Frank walked down to "The Black Dog."
He was one of Perkins's best pupils, and the latter had more than once
been heard to express his regret that Frank had not been born in a lower
class of life.

"He's got the making of a champion in him," the ex-pugilist would say
regretfully; "in another five years, when he has got his full height and
filled out, I warrant he will fight twelve stone; look how quick he is
on his pins; and I tell you I have all my work to do now to guard my
head, he hits like lightning, and once or twice has fairly knocked me
off my pins. I'd back him now for fifty pounds against any novice in
England; and as for pluck, I have never seen him wince, hit him as hard
as you will he always comes up smiling. Barkley, he is a good boxer too,
bu