“The fighting part’s just the same,” pointed out Mr. Dobb. “You’ve only got to let ’im play about with you for a bit, and the twenty quid is yours.”
“Play about?” echoed Mr. Tridge.
“That’s all, Joe,” said Mr. Dobb, reassuringly. “And you get twenty quid for it. It’s a big sum, but I know we can rely on you to keep your mouth shut. And ’ere’s the ‘Jolly Sailors’—let’s turn in and talk it over quietly.”
This they proceeded to do, though, as time progressed, they talked less and less quietly. Mr. Dobb, after drawing over and over again an agreeable mental picture wherein Mr. Tridge, for a few paltry taps on the nose, was rewarded with a hair-dressing business of his very own, at length won the admission from his friend that it seemed worth it, after all.
“’Course it is,” affirmed Mr. Dobb. “You can take a bit of punishment, can’t you?”
“I can take it all right,” acquiesced Mr. Tridge. “The worst of it is that I always takes it faster than I gives it.”
“Besides, Joe, ’e won’t ’it you very ’ard,” wheedled Mr. Dobb. “You see ’e’s got to give the idea that ’e’s out of form. And it won’t be till the twentieth round that ’e knocks you out, so you’ll ’ave plenty of time to get used to the idea.”
“And I might go down of my own haccord in the nineteenth,” said Mr. Tridge, brightly. “Then ’e won’t ’ave a chance to put me properly to sleep.”
So that, when at length the law of the land compelled the “Jolly Sailors” to be churlish with its hospitality, Mr. Tridge had promised that no effort should be lacking on his part to crown the match with success, and he and his old shipmate parted on the best of terms.
Next morning, however, Mr. Tridge’s courage had suffered a relapse. Calling on Mr. Dobb at an early hour, he proclaimed his intention to abjure the match. In vain did Mr. Dobb fawn upon him with honeyed words; in vain did Mr. Dobb conjure up for him a splendid vision of a barber’s shop with “J. Tridge” in big letters over the door. Mr. Tridge was obdurate to mere verbal blandishments. It was only when Mr. Dobb, in desperation, offered to come with him and enter into pourparlers for early occupation of the little shop Mr. Tridge knew to be standing empty, that that unwilling gladiator again agreed to hold to the terms of his contract.