"You must understand," said Shillabeer to his guests, "that Fogo always had letters stuck after his name, for all the world like other learned men. They was complimentary and given to him by the sporting Press of the kingdom."
"Quite true," said Fogo. "I was D.C.G., which stood for Deputy Commissary-General--the great Tom Oliver of course being C.-G. We had the handling of the stakes and ropes of the P.R. from the time that Oliver fought his last serious fight in 1821. He's a fruiterer and greengrocer now in Chelsea, and a year or two older than me."
"Then you was--what was it--P.L.P.R.--eh?" asked the 'Dumpling.'
"I was and still am," returned 'Frosty-face,' proudly. "P.L.P.R.--that's 'Poet Laureet of the Prize Ring.' And it may interest these gentlemen here assembled to know that many and many a time my poems about the great fights was printed in the sporting papers afore most of those present was born or thought of."
"I hope you've brought some along with you," said Reuben.
"Certainly I have--a sheaf of 'em. I never travel without them," returned the Londoner. "And when by good chance I find myself in a bar full of sportsmen of the real old sort, like to-night, I always say to myself, 'not a man here but shall have a chance of buying one of the poems on the great fights, written by old 'Frosty-faced Fogo.'"
"And you never fought yourself, Mr. Fogo?" asked David Bowden, who was of the company.
"Never in a serious way," answered the veteran. "There wasn't enough of me."
"I can mind when you come very near a mill though," declared Shillabeer. "'Twas after the fight between Tim Crawley and Burke, and the rain was coming down cats and dogs."
Mr. Fogo lifted his hand.