“Ye should see Moriarty,” gasped O’Hara.
“Now, will ye tell me why it is you’re going to fight, and with whom you’re going to fight?”
“Very well. It’s with Rand-Brown.”
“Rand-Brown!” exclaimed O’Hara. “But, me dearr man, he’ll ate you.”
Trevor gave a rather annoyed laugh. “I must say I’ve got a nice, cheery, comforting lot of friends,” he said. “That’s just what Clowes has been trying to explain to me.”
“Clowes is quite right,” said O’Hara, seriously. “Has the thing gone too far for ye to back out? Without climbing down, of course,” he added.
“Yes,” said Trevor, “there’s no question of my getting out of it. I daresay I could. In fact, I know I could. But I’m not going to.”
“But, me dearr man, ye haven’t an earthly chance. I assure ye ye haven’t. I’ve seen Rand-Brown with the gloves on. That was last term. He’s not put them on since Moriarty bate him in the middles, so he may be out of practice. But even then he’d be a bad man to tackle. He’s big an’ he’s strong, an’ if he’d only had the heart in him he’d have been going up to Aldershot instead of Moriarty. That’s what he’d be doing. An’ you can’t box at all. Never even had the gloves on.”
“Never. I used to scrap when I was a kid, though.”
“That’s no use,” said O’Hara, decidedly. “But you haven’t said what it is that ye’ve got against Rand-Brown. What is it?”