He took off his coat, folded it, and placed it carefully on a stone pillar hard by: then he picked up his hat, set it on top, and rolled up his shirt-sleeves. The young fisherman meanwhile divested himself of his jersey, and listened with a smug smile to the encouraging hints and practical instructions of his mates. Jack felt a trifle bored. It was much beneath his dignity as a midshipman of his Majesty King George to be fighting fisher lads in the open fish-market of Luscombe, but it would have been still more beneath his dignity to refuse the challenge and have the pack of fisher lads at his heels. He was relieved to find that the Square was quite deserted save for the group about him. A few seconds earlier he had had an impression that there were a number of fisher folk about. The people had, in fact, hastily retired into their cottages when they saw what was afoot. They had no objection to the lad’s trouncing a king’s officer, but when that officer happened to be a relative of Squire Bastable at the Grange it was perhaps just as well not to countenance the fight openly. For they had no doubt that Jan Lamiger would win. He stood half a head higher than the midshipman, and was probably three stone heavier. And, moreover, he had some little reputation in the neighborhood as a boxer and wrestler. Had he not thrown all comers at Wickham Fair? And knocked Tom Buggins, the light-weight, clean out of time at Casterbridge only last month? It was a somewhat rough battle-ground; the cobbles of the Square would make a hard fall; but neither of the combatants had chosen the spot, nor did it occur to them to seek a more convenient place for their encounter. Those were the days in which skill in the use of the fists was a real title to consideration among all classes, high and low. And fortunately for Jack, it was an art cultivated with great perseverance by the young gentlemen of H.M.S. _Ariadne_. A new midshipman had to fight his way into the right to call anything his own. So frequent were the battles on board, that the art had reached a very high degree of perfection. Even the muscular heroes of the prize-ring might have envied the quickness of eye, the wariness, the nimbleness of movement, the skill in feint, of these young warriors.