But the weeds at Hatton’s Club were fascinated by my homilies on science. The simplicity of the thing appealed to them irresistibly. They caught at the expression, “Science,” and regarded it as the “Hey Presto!” of a friendly conjurer who could so arrange matters for them that powerful opponents would fall flat, involuntarily, at the sight of their technically correct attitude. I did not like to destroy their illusions. Had I said to them, “Look here, science is no practical use to you unless you’ve got low-bridged, snub noses, protruding temples, nostrils like the tubes of a vacuum-cleaner, stomach muscles like motor-car wheels, hands like legs of mutton, and biceps like transatlantic cables”—had I said that, they would have voted boxing a fraud, and gone away to quarrel over a game of backgammon, which was precisely what I wished to avoid. So I let them go on with their tapping and feinting and side-slipping. To make it worse they overheard Sidney Price trying to pay me a compliment. Price was the insurance clerk who had attached himself to Hatton and had proved himself to be of real service in many ways. He was an honest man, but he could not box. He came down to the hall one night after I had given four or five lessons, to watch the boys spar. Of course, to the uninitiated eye it did seem as though they were neat in their work. The sight was very different from the absurd exhibition which Price had seen on the night I started with them. He might easily have said, if he was determined to compliment me, that they had “improved,” “progressed,” or something equally adequate and innocuous. But no. The man must needs be effusive, positively gushing. He came to me in transports. “Wonderful!” he said. “Wonderful!” “What’s wonderful?” I said, a shade irritably. “Their style,” he said loudly, so that they could all hear, “their style. It’s their style that astonishes me.” I hustled him away as soon as I could, but the mischief was done. Style ran through Hatton’s Club boys like an epidemic. Carnation Hall fairly buzzed with style. An apology for a blow which landed on your chest with the delicacy of an Agag among butterflies was extolled to the skies because it was a stylish blow. When Alf Joblin, a recruit, sent Walter Greenway sprawling with a random swing on the mark, there was a pained shudder. Not only Walter Greenway, but the whole club explained to Alf that the swing was a bad swing, an awful violation of style, practically a crime. By the time they had finished explaining, Alf was dazed; and when invited by Walter to repeat the hit with a view to his being further impressed with its want of style, did so in such half-hearted fashion that Walter had time to step stylishly aside and show Alf how futile it is to be unscientific.