The affair became interesting. A ring was immediately formed in front of the boarding house, into which the champions of the respective parties, denuded of all unnecessary covering, and each attended by his second, entered. The crew of the ship, the boarders of the General Armstrong, and the inmates of various boarding houses in the vicinity, formed quite a numerous body of spectators. The combatants very properly dispensed with the absurd custom of shaking hands before they came to blows. After glowering at each other for a moment, they went vigorously to work. The boatswain seemed determined to demolish his puny antagonist at once by some well-directed blows, and might possibly have succeeded if the blows had taken effect. But Catlin parried or avoided them with surprising skill and agility, until the boatswain losing patience, grasped his antagonist in his sinewy arms, and after a brief struggle, Catlin was thorn heavily upon his back. He rose from the earth, like a second Antaeus, with renewed vigor, and when the boatswain attempted to repeat the operation, Catlin dealt him a blow in the body which fairly lifted him from his feet, and, doubling him up, dropped him motionless on the ground. By the aid of his second, the boatswain was soon again on his feet. The fight was renewed, and continued with but little cessation for fifteen or twenty minutes, during which time Catlin had been twice thrown, but had received no visible injury; and the boatswain's features had been knocked out of all shape, and he had been several times felled to the earth by the terrible blows given by his antagonist. His endurance was wonderful; he submitted to his pounding like a hero, but he was rapidly losing strength; was evidently suffering much from pain, and another round would probably have finished the fierce contest, crowned Catlin with the victor's wreath, and led to a general tumult and row, when some new actors entered on the scene and changed the order of the performances.