a scholar,” said the prizefighter, after a moment’s reflection.
“I have been at school; but I didn’t learn much there,” replied the youth. “I think I could bookkeep by double entry,” he added, glancing at the card.
“Double entry! What’s that?”
“It’s the way merchants’ books are kept. It is called so because everything is entered twice over.”
“Ah!” said Skene, unfavorably impressed by the system; “once is enough for me. What’s your weight?”
“I don’t know,” said the lad, with a grin.
“Not know your own weight!” exclaimed Skene. “That ain’t the way to get on in life.”
“I haven’t been weighed since I was in England,” said the other, beginning to get the better of his shyness. “I was eight stone four then; so you see I am only a light-weight.”
“And what do you know about light-weights? Perhaps, being so well educated, you know how to fight. Eh?”
“I don’t think I could fight you,” said the youth, with another grin.
Skene chuckled; and the stranger, with boyish communicativeness, gave him an account of a real fight (meaning, apparently, one between professional pugilists) which he had seen in England. He went on to describe how he had himself knocked down a master with one blow when running away from school. Skene received this sceptically, and cross-examined the narrator as to the manner and effect of the blow, with the result of convincing himself that the story was true. At the end of a quarter of an hour the lad had commended himself so favorably by his conversation that the champion took him into the gymnasium, weighed him, measured him, and finally handed him a pair of boxing gloves and invited him to show what he was made of. The youth, though impressed by the prizefighter’s attitude with a hopeless sense of the impossibility of reaching him, rushed boldly at him several times, knocking his face on each occasion against Skene’s left fist, which seemed to be ubiquitous, and to have the property of imparting the consistency of iron to padded leather. At last the novice directed a frantic assault at the champion’s nose, rising on his toes in his excitement as he did so. Skene struck up the blow with his right arm, and the impetuous youth spun and stumbled away until he fell supine in a corner, rapping his head smartly on the floor at the same time. He rose with unabated cheerfulness and offered to continue the combat; but Skene declined any further exercise just then, and, much pleased with his novice’s game, promised to give him a scientific education and make a man of him.
The champion now sent for his wife, whom he revered as a preeminently sensible and well-mannered woman. The newcomer could see in her only a ridiculous dancing-mistress; but he treated her with great deference, and thereby improved the favorable opinion which Skene had already formed of him. He related to her how, after running away from school, he had made his way to Liverpool, gone to the docks, and contrived to hide himself on board a ship bound for Australia. Also how he had suffered severely from hunger and thirst before he discovered himself; and how, notwithstanding his unpopular position as stowaway, he had been fairly treated as soon as he had shown that he was willing to work. And in proof that he was still willing, and had profited by his maritime experience, he offered to sweep the floor of the gymnasium then and there. This proposal convinced the Skenes, who had listened to his story like children listening to a fairy tale, that he was not too much of a gentleman to do rough work, and it was presently arranged that he should thenceforth board and lodge with them, have five shillings a week for pocket-money, and be man-of-all-work, servant, gymnasium-attendant, clerk, and apprentice to the ex-champion of England and the colonies.
He soon found his bargain no easy one. The gymnasium was open from nine in the morning until eleven at night, and the athletic gentlemen who came there not only ordered him about without ceremony, but varied the monotony of being set at naught by the invincible Skene by practising what he taught them on the person of his apprentice, whom they pounded with great relish, and threw backwards, forwards, and over their shoulders as though he had been but a senseless effigy, provided for that purpose. Meanwhile the champion looked on and laughed, being too lazy to redeem his promise of teaching the novice to defend himself. The latter, however, watched the lessons which he saw daily given to others, and, before the end of a month, he so completely turned the tables on the amateur pugilists of Melbourne that Skene one day took occasion to remark that he was growing uncommon clever, but that gentlemen liked to be played easy with, and that he should be careful not to knock them about too much. Besides these bodily exertions, he had to keep account of gloves and foils sold and bought, and of the fees due both to Mr. and Mrs. Skene. This was the most irksome part of his duty; for he wrote a large, schoolboy hand, and was not quick at figures. When he at last began to assist his master in giving lessons the accounts had fallen into arrear, and Mrs. Skene had to resume her former care of them; a circumstance which gratified her husband, who regarded it as a fresh triumph of her superior intelligence. Then a Chinaman was engaged to do the more menial work of the establishment. “Skene’s novice,” as he was now generally called, was elevated to the rank of assistant professor to the champion, and became a person of some consequence in the gymnasium.
He had been there more than nine months, and had developed from an active youth into an athletic young man of eighteen, when an important conversation took place between him and his principal. It was evening, and the only persons in the gymnasium were Ned Skene, who sat smoking at his ease with his coat off, and the novice, who had just come downstairs from his bedroom, where he had been preparing for a visit to the theatre.
“Well, my gentleman,” said Skene, mockingly; “you’re a fancy man, you are. Gloves too! They’re too small for you. Don’t you get hittin’ nobody with them on, or you’ll mebbe sprain your wrist.”
“Not much fear of that,” said the novice, looking at his watch, and, finding that he had some minutes to spare, sitting down opposite Skene.
“No,” assented the champion. “When you rise to be a regular professional you won’t care to spar with nobody without you’re well paid for it.”
“I may say I am in the profession already. You don’t call me an amateur, do you?”
“Oh, no,” said Skene, soothingly; “not so bad as that. But mind you, my boy, I don’t call no man a fighting-man what ain’t been in the ring. You’re a sparrer, and a clever, pretty sparrer; but sparring ain’t the real thing. Some day, please God, we’ll make up a little match for you, and show what you can do without the gloves.”
“I would just as soon have the gloves off as on,” said the novice, a little sulkily.
“That’s because you have a heart as big as a lion,” said Skene, patting him on the shoulder. But the novice, who was accustomed to hear his master pay the same compliment to his patrons whenever they were seized with fits of boasting (which usually happened when they got beaten), looked obdurate and said nothing.
“Sam Ducket, of Milltown, was here to-day while you was out giving Captain Noble his lesson,” continued Skene, watching his apprentice’s face cunningly. “Now Sam is a real fighting-man, if you like.”
“I don’t think much of him. He’s a liar, for one thing.”
“That’s a failing of the profession. I don’t mind telling YOU so,” said Skene, mournfully. Now the novice had found out this for himself, already. He never, for instance, believed the accounts which his master gave of the accidents and conspiracies which had led to his being defeated three times in the ring. However, as Skene had won fifteen battles, his next remark was undeniable. “Men fight none the worse for being liars. Sam
