“Very good, ma’am. Where shall he go?”
“I will tell you exactly, and you will please take careful note of all that I say. You, Mr. Cribb, will take your man down to the Golden Cross Inn at Charing Cross by nine o’clock on Wednesday morning. He will take the Brighton coach as far as Tunbridge Wells, where he will alight at the Royal Oak Arms. There he will take such refreshment as you advise before a fight. He will wait at the Royal Oak Arms until he receives a message by word, or by letter, brought him by a groom in a mulberry livery. This message will give him his final instructions.”
“And I am not to come?”
“No,” said the lady.
“But surely, ma’am,” he pleaded, “I may come as far as Tunbridge Wells? It’s hard on a man to train a cove for a fight and then to leave him.”
“It can’t be helped. You are too well known. Your arrival would spread all over the town, and my plans might suffer. It is quite out of the question that you should come.”
“Well, I’ll do what you tell me, but it’s main hard.”
“I suppose,” said Spring, “you would have me bring my fightin’ shorts and my spiked shoes?”
“No; you will kindly bring nothing whatever which may point to your trade. I would have you wear just those clothes in which I saw you first, such clothes as any mechanic or artisan might be expected to wear.”
Tom Cribb’s blank face had assumed an expression of absolute despair.