"Trout--nought else. And 'tisn't the season for 'em. But a fisherman still, I see--eh? What a man! Not a day older, I warrant. And how did they serve you at Plymouth?"
"I've no fault to find with Plymouth," said Mr. Fogo. "They done me a treat there, and we had a pretty sporting house and a nice set-to in the new way with the mufflers. I got my boy through, but he'd have lost if I hadn't been there. And now let me cast my eye over you, 'Dumpling.' The same man; but gone in the hams, I see. You big 'uns--'tis always that way. Your frames can't carry the load of fat. And so your lady has passed away to a better land. But that's old history."
"No, it isn't, Fogo," declared Mr. Shillabeer, his animation perishing. "'Twill never be old history so long as I bide in the vale; and I hope you'll have a good tell about her many a time afore you leave me. But not to-day. We'll talk about her in private--you and me--over a drop of something special."
"'Twas the weather killed her, I doubt," hazarded Mr. Fogo. "You couldn't expect a London woman to stand so much fresh air as you've got down here. Why--Good Lord!--you breathe nought with a smell to it from year to year! There's not a homely whiff of liquor or fried fish strikes the nose--not so much as the pleasant odour of brewing, or them smells that touch the beak Covent Garden way. Nought for miles and miles--unless it's pigs; and that I don't like, and never shall."
"Our air will make you terrible hungry, however," promised Mr. Shillabeer; "and by the same token we'd better get on our way, for there's a goose with apple sauce and some pretty stuffing to welcome you."
That evening a very large gathering assembled in the public bar of 'The Corner House,' and the men of Standing were introduced each in turn to Mr. Fogo. He had changed his attire and produced from the box of many nails a rusty brown coat, a shirt with a frill and black knee-breeches. Thus attired, he suggested some pettifogging attorney from the beginning of the century. He sat by the fire, smoked a clay and conducted himself with the utmost affability. He was, in fact, no greater than common men while ordinary subjects were under discussion. Only when the Prize Ring began to be talked about, did the aquiline and historic Fogo soar to his true altitudes and silence all listeners before the torrent of his discourse.
The visitor drank gin and not much of that. He was somewhat silent at first until Reuben explained his many-sided greatness; then, when the company a little realised the man they had among them, he began to talk.
"The Fancy always felt you was unlike the rest," said Shillabeer. "Even the papers took you serious. There was pugs and there was mugs; there was good sportsmen and bad ones, and there were plenty of all sorts else, but never more than one 'Frosty-face.'"
Mr. Fogo nodded.
"I can't deny it," he said. "'Twas my all-roundness, I believe. Fight I couldn't--not being built on the pattern of a fighting man, though the heart was in me; but I had a slice over my share of wits, and I'd forgot more about the P.R. than most people ever knew before I was half a century old."