It was pleasant to find that his honest face had not belied him.
“It is very good of you,” I said; “I had given up all hopes of seeing you. Or,” I added with a smile, “my seven pounds.”
“Seven pun’ ten,” he corrected me; “you’re forgetting your own thin ’un.”
He handed me the money and went back to his stand.
On my way into the town I came across him again. A small crowd was collected, thoughtfully watching a tramp knocking about a miserable-looking woman.
Jack, pushing to the front, took in the scene and took off his coat in the same instant.
“Now then, my fine old English gentleman,” he sang out, “come and have a try at me for a change.”
The tramp was a burly ruffian, and I have seen better boxers than Jack. He got himself a black eye, and a nasty cut over the lip, before he hardly knew where he was. But in spite of that—and a good deal more—he stuck to his man and finished him.
At the end, as he helped his adversary up, I heard him say to the fellow in a kindly whisper:—
“You’re too good a sort, you know, to whollop a woman. Why, you very near give me a licking. You must have forgot yourself, matey.”