That was the last I saw of the Slasher for years. He was the cynosure of all eyes then, and observed of all observers. But there is no wolf so strong but he may find another to make wolves' meat of him; and Tom Sayers, who had fought his first fight—so tradition tells—on the canal bank within a mile of the Slasher's public-house, sent in his challenge, and poor old Tipton's colours were lowered for once and for ever. He mortgaged the stock and goodwill of the house and backed himself for every penny he was worth, and he was beaten. He was grey and over-fat, and his fighting days were over. I forget now for how many years he had held the Championship Belt, but he ought to have been left to rest upon his laurels, surely.
He was dying when I saw him again, and his vast chest and shoulders were shrunken and bowed, so that one wondered where the very framework of the giant man had fallen to. He was despised and forgotten and left alone, and he sat on the side of his bed with an aspect altogether dejected and heartless. In his better days he had liked what he used to call 'a stripe of white satin,' which was the poetic for a glass of Old Tom gin. I carried a bottle of that liquor with me as a peace-offering, and a quarter of a pound of bird's-eye. He did not know me, and there was no speculation in his look; but after a drink he brightened. When I entered the room he sat in he was twirling an empty clay with a weary listless thumb and finger, and the tobacco was welcome.
'They mought ha' let me aloon,' he told me, when his wits grew clear, 'I'd held the belt for seventeen 'ear,' (I think he said seventeen, but 'Fistiana' is not at hand, and I can but make a guess at memory.) 'They mought ha' let me aloon. Turn's a good un. I've sin 'em all, an' I've niver sin a better. But he owed to ha' let me be. Theer was no credit to be got in hommerin' a man at my time o' life. All the same, mind ye, I thowt I should ha' trounced him. So I should if I could ha' got at him; but he fled hither an' he fled thither, and he was about me like a cooper a-walkin' round a cask. An' I was fule enough to lose temper, an' the crowd begun to laugh an' gibe at me, an' I took to räacin' round after him, an' my wind went, an' wheer was I then? He knocked me down—fair an' square he did it. Th' on'y time it iver chanced to me. I put everythin' I had o' that fight, an' here I bin.'
It will be within the memory of such as care for these things that, after the last great battle which brought the fistic history of England to a glorious close, Tom Sayers and the Benicia Boy, his late opponent, enlisted with Messrs. Howes and Cushing, proprietors of a circus in those days, and travelled the country, sparring nightly in amity together. My father, who had naturally about as much sympathy with the Prize-Ring as with the atrocities of the King of Dahomey, was nevertheless fired with admiration for the hero of Farnborough, and must needs go to see him. He astonished everybody who knew him by showing his silver head and whiskers in the bar parlour of the hotel at which Mr. Sayers was quartered for the night I suppose that the worshippers at Tom's shrine were of another sort as a rule; but he was evidently and mightily impressed by the old gentleman's interest in his career. He told a story which, in its main lines, I remember as well as if I had heard it yesterday, though I rack my brains in vain for the names of the two people concerned in it.
'I suppose, sir,' said Tom, 'as you never heard how I come to fight'—let me call him Jones.
No, my father never had heard.
'Well, it was like this. Lord —— comes to me a week or two before the Derby, and “Tom,” he says, “I've got a notion. You and me,” he says, “is goin' down to the Derby together,” he says. “I've got a pair of snow-white mokes,” he says, “and I've bought a coster's shallow. I'm having it painted white and picked out in gold,” he says, “and it's going to be upholstered in white satin. Now, you and me, Tom,” says his lordship—“you and me's going to get up in white shoes, white kickseys, white westcuts, white hats, white coats, white ties, and white gloves,” he says. “We'll go down a reg'lar pair of bloomin' lilies!” Well, we did, and it was agreed to be the best turn-out of the day. We was walkin' in the ring when up comes Jones, and, without with your leave or by your leave, he hits me on the nose. Well, I was that soft and out of condition the clarrit was all over me in no time. I was goin' for Jones like a shot; but his lordship he stops me and he says, “Tom,” he says, “you shall fight him,” he says, “for two hundred pound.” I did, and you may believe as I paid him out for that.'
We were greatly impressed with this narrative, and I have always thought the regular pair of blooming lilies delicious. I told Tom that I had known the poor old Slasher, and he spoke of him with respectful sympathy.
'He was the right sort, the Tipton was, and I was sorry to take him down. Perhaps somebody 'll come one of these days and lower my colours. It's my turn to-day and somebody else's to-morrow.'
I vex the shades no more. Their form of valour is no longer known amongst us; but there are some who regret. I find pathetics among them, and quaint humours, in my memory.