hrough,
sir, as anyone that knows my dealings could testify. The Master is
ready to weigh in!"

"So am I."

"You must weigh in the buff." Montgomery looked askance at the tall,
red-headed woman who was standing gazing out of the window.

"That's all right," said Wilson. "Get behind the curtain and put on
your fighting kit."

He did so, and came out the picture of an athlete, in white, loose
drawers, canvas shoes, and the sash of a well-known cricket club round
his waist. He was trained to a hair, his skin gleaming like silk, and
every muscle rippling down his broad shoulders and along his beautiful
arms as he moved them. They bunched into ivory knobs, or slid into
long, sinuous curves, as he raised or lowered his hands.

"What thinkest thou o' that?" asked Ted Barton, his second, of the woman
in the window.

She glanced contemptuously at the young athlete. "It's but a poor
kindness thou dost him to put a thread-paper yoong gentleman like yon
against a mon as is a mon. Why, my Jock would throttle him wi' one bond
lashed behind him."

"Happen he may--happen not," said Barton. "I have but twa pund in the
world, but it's on him, every penny, and no hedgin'. But here's t'
Maister, and rarely fine he do look."

The prize-fighter had come out from his curtain, a squat, formidable
figure, monstrous in chest and arms, limping slightly on his distorted
leg. His skin bad none of the freshness and clearness of Montgomery's,
but was dusky and mottled, with one huge mole amid the mat of tangled
black hair which thatched his mighty breast. His weight bore no
relation to his strength, for those huge shoulders and great arms, with
brown, sledge-hammer fists, would have fitted the heaviest man that ever
threw his cap into a ring. But his loins and legs were slight in
proportion. Montgomery, on the other hand, was as symmetrical as a
Greek statue. It would be an encounter between a man who was specially
fitted for one sport, and one who was equally capable of any. The two
looked curiously at each other: a bull-dog, and a high-bred clean-limbed
terrier, each full of spirit.

"How do you do?"

"How do?" The Master grinned again, and his three jagged front teeth
gleamed for an instant. The rest had been beaten out of him in twenty
years of battle. He spat upon the floor. "We have a rare fine day
for't."

"Capital," said Montgomery.

"That's the good feelin' I like," wheezed the fat butcher. "Good lads,
bot