There were difficulties, of course. And, strange as it may seem, these rose chiefly from the ravages of the tender sentiment of love. The Knuckle Dusters had laid it down as a fundamental condition that no girls were to be permitted, or even encouraged. Miss Celie had insisted upon this. Perhaps, womanlike, she wished to reign alone, and could brook no rivals near her throne. But in practice the rule was found difficult of enforcement. For there was no maidenly backwardness about the girls of the Sooth Back. It was indeed a rule that each Keelie, beyond the condition of a schoolboy, should possess himself of a sweetheart—that is, so soon as he was capable of "doing for himself." Sometimes these alliances resulted in singularly early marriage. Oftener they did not. Cleg, of course, was much too young for "nonsense" of this kind, as he described it. But Cleaver's boy, and Tam Luke, and indeed most of the Knuckle Dusters, being "in places," were from the first equipped with a complete working outfit of sweethearts, pipes, and navy revolvers. They got them all about the same time, not because they wanted them, but because it was the fashion. Yet I do them no more than justice when I allow that they thought most highly of the pipes. They treated their pipes with every consideration. It is true that each Knuckle Duster spoke of his sweetheart as "my young lady," but this was only between themselves. To the "young ladies" themselves their words were certainly not the ordinary and hackneyed terms of affection, such as generations of common lovers have used. But the girls were not to be daunted. With such cavalier and disdainful knights, ordinary methods were put out of court. It was clearly necessary that someone should do the wooing. If not the Knuckle Dusters (haughty knaves), why, then the "young lady" herself. It was always Leap Year in the Sooth Back. There were but two unforgivable crimes in the bright lexicon of love, as it was consulted in the lower parts of the Pleasance. On the side of the Knuckle Dusters the one unpardonable fault was "going with a swell." On the part of the "young ladies" it was "taking up with another girl." Blows, disdain, contumely, abuse, all fell alike harmless—mere love-pats of the gentle god. "Another" is the only fatal word in love. So, then, it was quite in keeping with the nature of things, and especially with the nature of untrammelled youth, that the Knuckle Dusters' Club should have its amatorious difficulties. Part of each evening at the club was now devoted to the sciences. Arithmetic and writing were the favourites. There was also talk of forming a shorthand class. For shorthand has a mysterious fascination for the uneducated. It is universal matter of faith among them, that only the most gifted of the human race can learn to write shorthand. This is strange enough, for both observation and experience teach us that the difficulty lies in reading the shorthand after it is written.