Lord David attended prize-fights, and was their living law.  On occasions of great performances it was he who had the stakes driven in and ropes stretched, and who fixed the number of feet for the ring.  When he was a second, he followed his man step by step, a bottle in one hand, a sponge in the other, crying out to him to hit hard, suggesting stratagems, advising him as he fought, wiping away the blood, raising him when overthrown, placing him on his knee, putting the mouth of the bottle between his teeth, and from his own mouth, filled with water, blowing a fine rain into his eyes and ears—­a thing which reanimates even a dying man.  If he was referee, he saw that there was no foul play, prevented any one, whosoever he might be, from assisting the combatants, excepting the seconds, declare the man beaten who did not fairly face his opponent, watched that the time between the rounds did not exceed half a minute, prevented butting, and declared whoever resorted to it beaten, and forbade a man’s being hit when down.  All this science, however, did not render him a pedant, nor destroy his ease of manner in society.

When he was referee, rough, pimple-faced, unshorn friends of either combatant never dared to come to the aid of their failing man, nor, in order to upset the chances of the betting, jumped over the barrier, entered the ring, broke the ropes, pulled down the stakes, and violently interposed in the battle.  Lord David was one of the few referees whom they dared not thrash.

No one could train like him.  The pugilist whose trainer he consented to become was sure to win.  Lord David would choose a Hercules—­massive as a rock, tall as a tower—­and make him his child.  The problem was to turn that human rock from a defensive to an offensive state.  In this he excelled.  Having once adopted the Cyclops, he never left him.  He became his nurse; he measured out his wine, weighed his meat, and counted his hours of sleep.  It was he who invented the athlete’s admirable rules, afterwards reproduced by Morley.  In the mornings, a raw egg and a glass of sherry; at twelve, some slices of a leg of mutton, almost raw, with tea; at four, toast and tea; in the evening, pale ale and toast; after which he undressed his man, rubbed him, and put him to bed.  In the street he never allowed him to leave his sight, keeping him out of every danger—­runaway horses, the wheels of carriages, drunken soldiers, pretty girls.  He watched over his virtue.  This maternal solicitude continually brought some new perfection into the pupil’s education.  He taught him the blow with the fist which breaks the teeth, and the twist of the thumb which gouges out the eye.  What could be more touching?

Thus he was preparing himself for public life to which he was to be called later on.  It is no easy matter to become an accomplished gentleman.