“Now the fat’s on!” observed the big man, with a foreboding sigh.

“You may pull her ’ead off,” Albert answered resignedly.  “There ain’t no ‘oldin’ of her.”

“Dangerous, very dangerous!” whispered the big man to Mr. Clarkson.  “A terror is Albert when she’s beat!  Bloodshed frequent outside!  She’s always beat—­always starts, and always beat.”

“Celtic, I suppose,” Mr. Clarkson observed.

“Dangerous, very dangerous!” repeated the big man with a sigh.

And so, indeed, it proved.  Pair after pair were led forward, and when the turn of Albert’s girl came, she won the heat easily.  Then the process of selection among the forty or fifty of the first set of winners began, and she won the second heat.  At last the competitors were reduced to six, and she stood on the right, in line with the others, while the showman pointed to each in turn, and called for the judgment of the audience.  Then, indeed, passion rose to hurricane.  Tumultuous storms of admiration and fury received each girl.  Again and again each was presented, and the same seething chaos of sound ensued.  The whole theatre stood howling together, waving hats and handkerchiefs, blowing horns and whistles, carried beyond all limits of reason by the rage for the beautiful.

Albert gathered his friends round him, conducted them like an orchestra, and made them yell, “The one on the right!  The one on the right!  We want the one on the right, or well never go home to-night!”

“Shout!” he screamed to Mr. Clarkson, who was contemplating the scene with his habitual interest.

“Certainly, I will, though the lady is not a Dreadnought,” Mr. Clarkson replied soothingly, and he began saying “Brava!  Brava!” quite loud.  Instantly, Albert’s opponents caught up the word, and echoed it in mockery, imitating his correct pronunciation.  Mincing syllables of “Brava!  Brava!” were heard on every side.

“You just let me catch you booin’ my girl!” shouted Albert, springing in frenzy upon the seat, and shaking his fist close to Mr. Clarkson’s eyes.  “You let me catch you!  Ever since you came in, you’ve been layin’ odds against my girl, you and your rotten talk!”

“On the contrary,” replied Mr. Clarkson, smiling, “even apart from aesthetic grounds, I should be delighted to see her victorious.”

“Then put up your dukes or take that on your silly jaw,” cried Albert, preparing to strike.

“The beautiful is always hard,” Mr. Clarkson observed, still smiling.

“Best come away with me, mister,” said the big man, pushing between them.  “Avoid unpleasantness.”

“Race as good as over,” he added, as he forced Mr. Clarkson down the gangway.  “Places:  pink first, ’cos she puts her ‘ead a’ one side; factory girl second, ‘cos they likes her bein’ dressed common; blue third, ’cos of her openwork stockin’s; Albert’s girl nowhere, ’cos she never is.”

They mounted one of the cars that are fed on the County Council’s lightning.