There was a sudden interruption to the speculations of the two prize-fighters. The door opened and the lady entered. As her eyes fell upon the two men her dark, handsome face flushed with anger, and she gazed at them silently with an expression of contempt which brought them both to their feet with hangdog faces. There they stood, their long, reeking pipes in their hands, shuffling and downcast, like two great rough mastiffs before an angry mistress.
“So!” said she, stamping her foot furiously. “And this is training!”
“I’m sure we’re very sorry, ma’am,” said the abashed Champion. “I didn’t think—I never for one moment supposed—”
“That I would come myself to see if you were taking my money on false pretences? No, I dare say not. You fool!” she blazed, turning suddenly upon Tom Spring. “You’ll be beat. That will be the end of it.”
The young man looked up with an angry face.
“I’ll trouble you not to call me names, ma’am. I’ve my self-respect, the same as you. I’ll allow that I shouldn’t have smoked when I was in trainin’. But I was saying to Tom Cribb here, just before you came in, that if you would give over treatin’ us as if we were children, and if you would tell us just who it is you want me to fight, and when, and where, it would be a deal easier for me to take myself in hand.”
“It’s true, ma’am,” said the Champion. “I know it must be either the Gasman or Bill Neat. There’s no one else. So give me the office, and I’ll promise to have him as fit as a trout on the day.”
The lady laughed contemptuously.
“Do you think,” said she, “that no one can fight save those who make a living by it?”
“By George, it’s an amateur!” cried Cribb, in amazement. “But you don’t surely ask Tom Spring to train for three weeks to meet a Corinthian?”