“A pretty winner! Beat in forty rounds by Ned Painter.”
“You had beat him first.”
“And by the Lord, I will again!”
“So you will, lad. George Nicholls would never give me another shy. Knew too much, he did. Bought a butcher’s shop in Bristol with the money, and there he is to this day.”
“Yes, I’ll come back on Painter, but I haven’t a shilling left. My backers have lost faith in me. If it wasn’t for you, Daddy, I’d be in the kennel.”
“Have you nothing left, Tom?”
“Not the price of a meal. I left every penny I had, and my good name as well, in the ring at Kingston. I’m hard put to it to live unless I can get another fight, and who’s going to back me now?”
“Tut, man! the knowing ones will back you. You’re the top of the list, for all Ned Painter. But there are other ways a man may earn a bit. There was a lady in here this morning—nothing flash, boy, a real tip-top out-and-outer with a coronet on her coach—asking after you.”
“Asking after me! A lady!” The young pugilist stood up with surprise and a certain horror rising in his eyes. “You don’t mean, Daddy—”
“I mean nothing but what is honest, my lad. You can lay to that!”