“And served you right, too, you old stupid. You was wrong then; and you’re wrong now, with your blessed Paradise.”
“Paradise has never been licked yet.”
“No more has my boy.”
“Well, we’ll see.”
“We’ll see! I tell you I’ve seed for myself. I’ve seed Billy Paradise spar; and it ain’t fighting, it’s ruffianing: that’s what it is. Ruffianing! Why, my old missis has more science.”
“Mebbe she has,” said Mellish. “But look at the men he’s licked that were chock full of science. Shepstone, clever as he is, only won a fight from him by claiming a foul, because Billy lost his temper and spiked him. That’s the worst of Billy; he can’t keep his feelings in. But no fine-lady sparrer can stand afore that ugly rush of his. Do you think he’ll care for Cashel’s showy long shots? Not he: he’ll just take ‘em on that mahogany nut of his, and give him back one o’ them smashers that he settled poor Dick Weeks with.”
“I’ll lay you any money he don’t. If he does, I’ll go back into the ring myself, and bust his head off for it.” Here Skene, very angry, applied several epithets to Paradise, and became so excited that Mellish had to soothe him by partially retracting his forebodings, and asking how Cashel had been of late.
“He’s not been taking care of himself as he oughter,” said Skene, gloomily. “He’s showing the London fashions to the missis and Fanny—they’re here in the three-and-sixpenny seats, among the swells. Theatres every night; and walks every day to see the queen drive through the park, or the like. My Fan likes to have him with her on account of his being such a gentleman: she don’t hardly think her own father not good enough to walk down Piccadilly with. Wants me to put on a black coat and make a parson of myself. The missis just idolizes him. She thinks the boy far too good for the young ‘oman you was speaking of, and tells him that she’s only letting on not to care for him to raise her price, just as I used to pretend to be getting beat, to set the flats betting agin me. The women always made a pet of him. In Melbourne it was not what I liked for dinner: it was always what the boy ‘ud like, and when it ‘ud please him to have it. I’m blest if I usen’t to have to put him up to ask for a thing when I wanted it myself. And you tell me that that’s the lad that’s going to let Billy Paradise lick him, I s’pose. Walker!”
Lydia, with Mrs. Byron’s charm fresh upon her, wondered what manner of woman this Mrs. Skene could be who had supplanted her in the affections of her son, and yet was no more than a prize-fighter’s old missis. Evidently she was not one to turn a young man from a career in the ring. Again the theme of Cashel’s occupation and the chances of his quitting it ran away with Lydia’s attention. She sat with her eyes fixed on the arena, without seeing the soldiers, swordsmen, or athletes who were busy there; her mind wandered further and further from the place; and the chattering of the people resolved itself into a distant hum and was forgotten.
Suddenly she saw a dreadful-looking man coming towards her across the arena. His face had the surface and color of blue granite; his protruding jaws and retreating forehead were like those of an orang-outang. She started from her reverie with a shiver, and, recovering her hearing as well as her vision of external things, became conscious of an attempt to applaud this apparition by a few persons below. The man grinned ferociously, placed one hand on a stake of the ring, and vaulted over the ropes. Lydia now remarked that, excepting his hideous head and enormous hands and feet, he was a well-made man, with loins and shoulders that shone in the light, and gave him an air of great strength and activity.