The old gladiator looked round him in great contempt.

“Vy, from vot I see,” he cried, in his high, broken treble, “there’s some on you that ain’t fit to flick a fly from a joint o’ meat.  You’d make werry good ladies’ maids, the most of you, but you took the wrong turnin’ ven you came into the ring.”

“Give ’im a wipe over the mouth,” said a hoarse voice.

“Joe Berks,” said Jackson, “I’d save the hangman the job of breaking your neck if His Royal Highness wasn’t in the room.”

“That’s as it may be, guv’nor,” said the half-drunken ruffian, staggering to his feet.  “If I’ve said anything wot isn’t genelmanlike—­”

“Sit down, Berks!” cried my uncle, with such a tone of command that the fellow collapsed into his chair.

“Vy, vitch of you would look Tom Slack in the face?” piped the old fellow; “or Jack Broughton?—­him vot told the old Dook of Cumberland that all he vanted vas to fight the King o’ Proosia’s guard, day by day, year in, year out, until ’e ’ad worked out the whole regiment of ’em—­and the smallest of ’em six foot long.  There’s not more’n a few of you could ‘it a dint in a pat o’ butter, and if you gets a smack or two it’s all over vith you.  Vich among you could get up again after such a vipe as the Eytalian Gondoleery cove gave to Bob Vittaker?”

“What was that, Buckhorse?” cried several voices.

“’E came over ’ere from voreign parts, and ’e was so broad ’e ’ad to come edgewise through the doors.  ’E ’ad so, upon my davy!  ’E was that strong that wherever ’e ’it the bone had got to go; and when ’e’d cracked a jaw or two it looked as though nothing in the country could stan’ against him.  So the King ’e sent one of his genelmen down to Figg and he said to him:  ’’Ere’s a cove vot cracks a bone every time ’e lets vly, and it’ll be little credit to the Lunnon boys if they lets ‘im get avay vithout a vacking.’  So Figg he ups, and he says, ’I do not know, master, but he may break one of ’is countrymen’s jawbones vid ’is vist, but I’ll bring ’im a Cockney lad and ’e shall not be able to break ’is jawbone with a sledge ‘ammer.’  I was with Figg in Slaughter’s coffee-’ouse, as then vas, ven ’e says this to the King’s genelman, and I goes so, I does!” Again he emitted the curious bell-like cry, and again the Corinthians and the fighting-men laughed and applauded him.

“His Royal Highness—­that is, the Earl of Chester—­would be glad to hear the end of your story, Buckhorse,” said my uncle, to whom the Prince had been whispering.

“Vell, your R’yal ’Ighness, it vas like this.  Ven the day came round, all the volk came to Figg’s Amphitheatre, the same that vos in Tottenham Court, an’ Bob Vittaker ’e vos there, and the Eytalian Gondoleery cove ’e vas there, and all the purlitest, genteelest crowd that ever vos, twenty thousand of ’em, all sittin’ with their ’eads like purtaties on a barrer, banked right up round the stage, and me there to pick