“You don’t try quick enough, Mr. Fitzjohn. You want to look to. your footwork more. I shan’t let you hit me till you deserve to.”
“What about me?” asked Peregrine, wiping the sweat out of his eyes.
“You’re shaping, sir, but you must keep your head more. You rattle in too hard. Go along to the Fives Court next Tuesday for the sparring exhibition, and you’ll see some very pretty boxing there.”
“I can’t,” said Peregrine, draping a towel round his shoulders. “I’m going to the Cock-Pit. The Gentlemen of Yorkshire against the Gentlemen of Kent, for a thousand guineas a side, and forty guineas each battle. You should come, Jackson. I’m fighting a Wednesbury grey—never been beaten!”
“Give me a red pyle!” said Mr. Fitzjohn, “I don’t fancy any of your greys, or blues, or blacks. Red’s the only colour for your true game-cock.”
“Why, good God, Fitz, that’s the greatest piece of nonsense ever I heard? There’s nothing to touch a Wednesbury grey!”
“Except a red pyle,” said Mr. Fitzjohn obstinately.
“There are good cocks of all colours,” interposed Jackson. “I hope yours wins his fight, Sir Peregrine. I’d come, but I’ve promised to help Mr. Jones with the arrangements at the Fives Court.”
The two young men went off to the changing-room together, and forgot their difference of opinion in splashing water over themselves, and being rubbed down by the attendant. But as Peregrine put on his shirt again he recollected the argument sufficiently to invite Mr. Fitzjohn to come to the Cock-Pit Royal on Tuesday and see the match. Mr. Fitzjohn agreed to it very readily, and was only sorry that from the circumstances of his being Sussex-born he could not enter his own red pyle for a battle with Peregrine’s grey. “What’s his weight?” he asked, “Mine turns the scale of four pounds exactly.”
“Mine’s just over,” replied Peregrine. “Three years old, and the sharpest heel you ever saw. My cocker has had him preparing these six weeks. He’s resting him now.” He bethought him of something. “By the by, Fitz, if you should chance to meet my sister you need not mention it to her. She don’t above half like cocking, and I haven’t told her I’ve had my bird brought down from Yorkshire.”