“Yes, sir.”
“And you are fighting for a money prize?”
“Yes.”
“I suppose you know what you are doing? You realise that you’re a professional pug from this onwards, and that if ever you fight again—”
“I’ll never fight again.”
“Happen you won’t,” said the woman, and the Master turned a terrible eye upon her.
“Well, I suppose you know your own business best. Up you jump. One hundred and fifty-one, minus two, 149—12lbs. difference, but youth and condition on the other scale. Well, the sooner we get to work the better, for I wish to catch the seven o’clock express at Hellifield. Twenty three-minute rounds, with one-minute intervals, and Queensberry rules. Those are the conditions, are they not?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Very good, then—we may go across.”
The two combatants had overcoats thrown over their shoulders, and the whole party, backers, fighters, seconds, and the referee filed out of the room. A police inspector was waiting for them in the road. He had a note-book in his hand—that terrible weapon which awes even the London cabman.