“Well, you remember me asking you just now if you’d ever ’ad a quarrel with a prize-fighter?”
“Yes, I remember. But what’s that to— ’Ere, ’strewth! ’Orace!” cried Mr. Tridge, in alarm. “I twig your game now! You’re wanting me to match against a prize-fighter! No, thanks!” he said, with the utmost firmness. “Once bit, twice shy!”
“Wait a bit!” begged Mr. Dobb. “You ’aven’t ’eard what I’ve got to say!”
“And don’t want to, either! Not if there’s a prize fight at the end of it! Not for fifty blessed quid! I’ve ’ad some! No, thank you, ’Orace. I ain’t fighting no prize-fighters on the thin chance of getting a purse of twenty quid—if I win. Not me, ’Orace!”
“But you won’t ’ark to what I say!” complained Mr. Dobb.
“No, I won’t!” asseverated Mr. Tridge. “While I’ve got the senses I was born with, I’ll ’ave nothing to do with prize-fighters, and that’s flat!”
“You mean it?” asked Horace. “That’s your last word?”
“I do!” returned Mr. Tridge, in complete determination. “It are!”
Mr. Dobb shook his head a little perplexedly, and was clearly on the point of saying something further, when he changed his mind and frowned thoughtfully at the ceiling for some while. Mr. Tridge, with arms doggedly folded, stared at him in resolute opposition.
“As a matter of fact, Joe,” said Mr. Dobb, at last, “you’re on quite the wrong tack. Prize-fighters ain’t got nothing to do with it.”