“And now,” stated Mr. Dobb, “’e’s got a idea for making people like ’im more serious. He’s going to ’ave a fight with some one and knock ’im clean out.”
“But from what you’ve been telling me,” objected Mr. Tridge, “’e couldn’t knock a fly off the wall.”
Mr. Dobb, sitting erect, favoured his friend with a vast lingering wink. Then he continued his exposition.
It appeared that Mr. Jevvings was a close acquaintance of Mr. Dobb’s. Recently he had come unostentatiously to Mr. Dobb and had confessed to him the bitterness that was vexing his soul. It was, in fact, Mr. Dobb who had suggested a semi-public demonstration of his fistic powers which should compel admiration and respect. With this proposition Mr. Jevvings had fallen in so enthusiastically that he had left all arrangements, financial and otherwise, to be consummated by Mr. Dobb.
“So that’s where you comes in,” explained Mr. Dobb.
“I see,” said Mr. Tridge, acutely. “I says something to ’im, ’e knocks me down, and I get twenty quid for it?”.
“Oh, not so helementary as that, Joe!” replied Mr. Dobb, pained at such lack of artistic imagination. “It’s got to be worked up to, neat and natural. And there’s got to be time for people to talk about it, before it comes off, as well as after. It’ll be a swell thing, fought out reg’lar in a boxing-ring, with seconds and all.”
“And when ’e’s knocked me about long enough,” supposed Mr. Tridge, “down I goes, and takes the count-out?”
Roughly, agreed Mr. Dobb, that was about the size of it. But the preliminaries, he pointed out, would need careful handling to create sufficient stir to satisfy Mr. Jevvings, and also Mr. Tridge would be required to take enough punishment to make the affair look convincing ere he succumbed to Mr. Jevvings’ knockout blow. This, he explained, was the voluntary humiliation and suffering to which he had alluded earlier in the evening.
“Well, if ’e’s ’alf the rabbit you make ’im out to be, ’e can’t ’urt me much,” complacently theorized Mr. Tridge; “and, as for ’umiliation, I’ve been ’umiliated for nothing at all in police-courts before now, so I certainly don’t mind being ’umiliated for money.”