ont of
the boarding house, into which the champions of the respective parties,
denuded of all unnecessary covering, and each attended by his second,
entered. The crew of the ship, the boarders of the General Armstrong,
and the inmates of various boarding houses in the vicinity, formed quite
a numerous body of spectators. The combatants very properly dispensed
with the absurd custom of shaking hands before they came to blows. After
glowering at each other for a moment, they went vigorously to work. The
boatswain seemed determined to demolish his puny antagonist at once by
some well-directed blows, and might possibly have succeeded if the blows
had taken effect. But Catlin parried or avoided them with surprising
skill and agility, until the boatswain losing patience, grasped his
antagonist in his sinewy arms, and after a brief struggle, Catlin was
thorn heavily upon his back.

He rose from the earth, like a second Antaeus, with renewed vigor, and
when the boatswain attempted to repeat the operation, Catlin dealt him
a blow in the body which fairly lifted him from his feet, and, doubling
him up, dropped him motionless on the ground.

By the aid of his second, the boatswain was soon again on his feet. The
fight was renewed, and continued with but little cessation for fifteen
or twenty minutes, during which time Catlin had been twice thrown, but
had received no visible injury; and the boatswain's features had been
knocked out of all shape, and he had been several times felled to the
earth by the terrible blows given by his antagonist. His endurance was
wonderful; he submitted to his pounding like a hero, but he was rapidly
losing strength; was evidently suffering much from pain, and another
round would probably have finished the fierce contest, crowned Catlin
with the victor's wreath, and led to a general tumult and row, when
some new actors entered on the scene and changed the order of the
performances.

These actors appeared in the guise of a squad of police officers,
the city patrol, who had received intelligence of the row. They broke
through the ring, without regard to ceremony, and made a dash at the men
who were striving so hard to maul one another. The boatswain unable to
resist or flee, was easily captured, and also his second. But Catlin,
having heard the cry of "the watch! the watch!" as these vigilant
preservers of the public peace broke through the ring, gave his
antagonist a parting blow which he long rememb