“It was splendid, Jim!”

“Dear old Roddy!  I saw your white face staring at me from the corner.  You are not changed, for all your grand clothes and your London friends.”

“It is you who are changed, Jim,” said I; “I hardly knew you when you came into the room.”

“Nor I,” cried the smith.  “Where got you all these fine feathers, Jim?  Sure I am that it was not your aunt who helped you to the first step towards the prize-ring.”

“Miss Hinton has been my friend—­the best friend I ever had.”

“Humph!  I thought as much,” grumbled the smith.  “Well, it is no doing of mine, Jim, and you must bear witness to that when we go home again.  I don’t know what—­but, there, it is done, and it can’t be helped.  After all, she’s—­Now, the deuce take my clumsy tongue!”

I could not tell whether it was the wine which he had taken at supper or the excitement of Boy Jim’s victory which was affecting Harrison, but his usually placid face wore a most disturbed expression, and his manner seemed to betray an alternation of exultation and embarrassment.  Jim looked curiously at him, wondering evidently what it was that lay behind these abrupt sentences and sudden silences.  The coach-house had in the mean time been cleared; Berks with many curses had staggered at last to his feet, and had gone off in company with two other bruisers, while Jem Belcher alone remained chatting very earnestly with my uncle.

“Very good, Belcher,” I heard my uncle say.

“It would be a real pleasure to me to do it, sir,” and the famous prize-fighter, as the two walked towards us.

“I wished to ask you, Jim Harrison, whether you would undertake to be my champion in the fight against Crab Wilson of Gloucester?” said my uncle.

“That is what I want, Sir Charles—­to have a chance of fighting my way upwards.”

“There are heavy stakes upon the event—­very heavy stakes,” said my uncle.  “You will receive two hundred pounds, if you win.  Does that satisfy you?”

“I shall fight for the honour, and because I wish to be thought worthy of being matched against Jem Belcher.”

Belcher laughed good-humouredly.

“You are going the right way about it, lad,” said he.  “But you had a soft thing on to-night with a drunken man who was out of condition.”

“I did not wish to fight him,” said Jim, flushing.

“Oh, I know you have spirit enough to fight anything on two legs.  I knew that the instant I clapped eyes on you; but I want you to remember that when you fight Crab Wilson, you will fight the most promising man from the west, and that the best man of the west is likely to be the best man in England.  He’s as quick and as long in the reach as you are, and he’ll train himself to the last half-ounce of tallow.  I tell you this now, d’ye see, because if I’m to have the charge of you—­”

“Charge of me!”

“Yes,” said my uncle.  “Belcher has consented to train you for the coming battle if you are willing to enter.”