“A private room and the dumb-bells!” cried Geoffrey.  “The heaviest you have got.”

He stripped himself of his upper clothing, and set to work, with the heavy weights in each hand, waving them up and down, and backward and forward, in every attainable variety o f movement, till his magnificent muscles seemed on the point of starting through his sleek skin.  Little by little his animal spirits roused themselves.  The strong exertion intoxicated the strong man.  In sheer excitement he swore cheerfully—­invoking thunder and lightning, explosion and blood, in return for the compliments profusely paid to him by the pedestrian and the pedestrian’s son.  “Pen, ink, and paper!” he roared, when he could use the dumb-bells no longer.  “My mind’s made up; I’ll write, and have done with it!” He sat down to his writing on the spot; actually finished the letter; another minute would have dispatched it to the post—­and, in that minute, the maddening indecision took possession of him once more.  He opened the letter again, read it over again, and tore it up again.  “I’m out of my mind!” cried Geoffrey, fixing his big bewildered blue eyes fiercely on the professor who trained him.  “Thunder and lightning!  Explosion and blood!  Send for Crouch.”

Crouch (known and respected wherever English manhood is known and respected) was a retired prize-fighter.  He appeared with the third and last remedy for clearing the mind known to the Honorable Geoffrey Delamayn—­namely, two pair of boxing-gloves in a carpet-bag.

The gentleman and the prize-fighter put on the gloves, and faced each other in the classically correct posture of pugilistic defense.  “None of your play, mind!” growled Geoffrey.  “Fight, you beggar, as if you were in the Ring again with orders to win.”  No man knew better than the great and terrible Crouch what real fighting meant, and what heavy blows might be given even with such apparently harmless weapons as stuffed and padded gloves.  He pretended, and only pretended, to comply with his patron’s request.  Geoffrey rewarded him for his polite forbearance by knocking him down.  The great and terrible rose with unruffled composure.  “Well hit, Sir!” he said.  “Try it with the other hand now.”  Geoffrey’s temper was not under similar control.  Invoking everlasting destruction on the frequently-blackened eyes of Crouch, he threatened instant withdrawal of his patronage and support unless the polite pugilist hit, then and there, as hard as he could.  The hero of a hundred fights quailed at the dreadful prospect.  “I’ve got a family to support,” remarked Crouch.  “If you will have it, Sir—­there it is!” The fall of Geoffrey followed, and shook the house.  He was on his legs again in an instant—­not satisfied even yet.  “None of your body-hitting!” he roared.  “Stick to my head.  Thunder and lightning! explosion and blood!  Knock it out of me!  Stick to the head!” Obedient Crouch stuck to the head.  The two gave and took