“What right have you to wear them?  I belong to the club myself.”

“So do I.”

“You an amateur?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you are fighting for a money prize?”

“Yes.”

“I suppose you know what you are doing?  You realise that you’re a professional pug from this onwards, and that if ever you fight again—­”

“I’ll never fight again.”

“Happen you won’t,” said the woman, and the Master turned a terrible eye upon her.

“Well, I suppose you know your own business best.  Up you jump.  One hundred and fifty-one, minus two, 149—­12lbs. difference, but youth and condition on the other scale.  Well, the sooner we get to work the better, for I wish to catch the seven o’clock express at Hellifield.  Twenty three-minute rounds, with one-minute intervals, and Queensberry rules.  Those are the conditions, are they not?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Very good, then—­we may go across.”

The two combatants had overcoats thrown over their shoulders, and the whole party, backers, fighters, seconds, and the referee filed out of the room.  A police inspector was waiting for them in the road.  He had a note-book in his hand—­that terrible weapon which awes even the London cabman.

“I must take your names, gentlemen, in case it should be necessary to proceed for breach of peace.”

“You don’t mean to stop the fight?” cried Armitage, in a passion of indignation.  “I’m Mr. Armitage, of Croxley, and this is Mr. Wilson, and we’ll be responsible that all is fair and as it should be.”

“I’ll take the names in case it should be necessary to proceed,” said the inspector, impassively.

“But you know me well.”

“If you was a dook or even a judge it would be all’ the same,” said the inspector.  “It’s the law, and there’s an end.  I’ll not take upon myself to stop the fight, seeing that gloves are to be used, but I’ll take the names of all concerned.  Silas Craggs, Robert Montgomery, Edward Barton, James Stapleton, of London.  Who seconds Silas Craggs?”

“I do,” said the woman.  “Yes, you can stare, but it’s my job, and no one else’s.  Anastasia’s the name—­four a’s.”

“Craggs?”

“Johnson—­Anastasia Johnson.  If you jug him you can jug me.”

“Who talked of juggin’, ye fool?” growled the Master.  “Coom on, Mr. Armitage, for I’m fair sick o’ this loiterin’.”

The inspector fell in with the procession, and proceeded, as they walked up the hill, to bargain in his official capacity for a front seat, where he could safeguard the interests of the law, and in his private capacity to lay out thirty shillings at seven to one with Mr. Armitage.  Through the door they passed, down a narrow lane walled with a dense bank of humanity, up a wooden ladder to a platform, over a rope which was slung waist-high from four corner-stakes, and then Montgomery realised that he was in that ring in which