"You keep out of it, Moses," said Mr. Shillabeer, warmly. "We be very good friends and long may we remain so; but stick to your last, shoemaker, and if these full-grown men be pleased to settle their difference in the fine old way, 'tis very churlish in you to oppose it."
"Well said, 'Dumpling,'" shouted a young, odd-looking, hairy man with the uneuphonious name of Screech; "if Moses here don't like fair play and nature's weapons, let him keep out of it; but if he tries to interfere, never a boot do he make for me again."
"Nor yet for me," cried Bowden. "You'll do well to go back on that, Mr. Moses, and keep away from the subject."
"Nor yet for me," echoed Timothy Mattacott, firmly. "I'm Maunder's friend, as you all know, and hope to remain so. But if there's to be the glad chance of a proper prize fight in this neighbourhood, I'm for it heart and soul."
Mr. Fogo had returned and heard some of this conversation.
"If the gentleman's a Jew," he said, "he ought to take kindly to the sport. Some of the best boys as ever threw a beaver into the Ring were Israelites--only to name Mendoza and Dutch Sam and Barney Aaron, 'the Star of the East.'"
"I'm not a Jew," said Mr. Moses, "though I don't blame you for thinking so."
"Not with that name?"
"Not at all. My people are Devon all through."
"Well," said Fogo, "my humble custom is to make hay while the sun shines. We Cockney blokes learn that quite as quick as you Johnny Raws from the plough-tail; and as there's a fight in the air, I'll be so bold as to sell a few of my verses to them brave blades that would like to see what fighting was once."