Around the hall there were placards announcing that smoking was respectfully prohibited, and the President did repeatedly entreat members of the audience to refrain from blowing a cloud, assuring them that the perfume of tobacco was noxious and disgustful to the combatants, and threatening to mention disobedient tobacconists by name.
Whereupon most did desist; but some, secreting their cigars in the hollow of their hands, took whiffs by stealth, and blushed to find it [flame]; while others, who were such grandees and big pots that their own convenience was the first and foremost desideratum, continued to smoke with lordliness and indifference.
And I am an approver of such conduct—for it is unreasonable that a well-bred, genteel sort of individual should make the total sacrifice of a cigar, for which he has perhaps paid as much as two or even four annas, out of consideration for insignificant common chaps hired to engage in snipsnaps for his entertainment.
The last competition was to be the bonne bouche and pièce de résistance of the evening, consisting of a rumpus in twenty rounds between Misters Tom Tracy of Australia, and Tommy Williams, from the same hemisphere, at which I was on the tiptoe of expectation.
But, although they commenced with dancing activity, one of the Toms in the very first round sparred the other under the chin with such superabundant energy that he immediately became a recumbent for a lengthy period, and, on being elevated to a chair, only recaptured sufficient consciousness to abandon the sponge.
And then, to my chapfallen disappointment, the Chairman announced that he was very sorry and could not help it, but that was the concluding box of the evening.
I will reluctantly confess that, on the whole, I found the proceedings lacking in sensationality, since they were of very limited duration, and totally devoid of bloodshed, or any danger to the life and limb of the performers. For it is not reasonably possible for a combatant to make a palpable hit when his hands are, as it were, muzzled, being cabined, cribbed, and confined in padded soft gloves. I am not a squeamish in such cases, and I must respectfully submit that the Cause of True Sport can only be hampered by such nursery and puerile restrictions, for none can expect to compound an omelette without the fracture of eggs.
Upon remarking as above to my young lively friend, he assured me that even a gloved hand was competent to produce facial disfigurement and tap the vital fluid, and offered to demonstrate the truth of his statement if I would be the partaker with him in a glove-box.
But, though doubting the authenticity of his assertions, I thought it prudential to decline the proof of the pudding, and so took a precipitate leave of him with profuse thanks for his unparagoned kindness, and many promises to put on the gloves with him at the first convenient opportunity.