Mister Timothy was a stalwart Milesian coalwhipper, aged twenty-three, hard upon six feet in height, and balancing 13 stone, and though no relation to “Peter the Great,” was only a shade less than the fighting weight and stature of that ponderous ex-champion. Tim was “presented at the Castle,” not of Dublin, but in Holborn, by a distinguished Hibernian field-officer, who intimated to Tom Spring his readiness to post the “needful” for Tim in a trial with any man Spring might select. There was the Deaf’un, rough and ready, “standing idle in the market place;” and as he said, when he was asked as to when he would be ready if a match were arranged, “Well, you see, Misters, I’se ready at any time――the sooner the better――but where’s the moneys to come from? I’ll put down five of my own, buts――――” a well-known member of the Stock Exchange struck in immediately, “and I’ll find the second five, and perhaps some more, if it’s wanted.” So the articles were there and then drawn, and Tuesday, the 16th, set down. East Barnet was the fixture, and on the appointed morning, despite a heavy storm of wind and rain, a numerous cavalcade thronged the roads from Finchley and Southgate to the rendezvous. Crawley came down in a brand-new white upper-benjamin, on the swell drag of his military patron. Tim was radiant, if the weather was gloomy, and assured his friends that “He thought mighty little of Misther Burke’s foightin”――(Tim had seen his battle with Hampson)――“if all he could do was what he did with that tumble down carpenther from Liverpool. By jabers,” he added, “I’m the boy that’ll tache him quite another sort o’ fun.” The storm increased in violence, the time was come, and all were waiting with what patience they could command. Crawley alighted from his vehicle and claimed the stakes, when Reuben Martin hastened up breathless and covered with mud, to announce that the Deaf’un would be there immediately. The Deaf’un had left Soho in a hired gig; the horse had proved a “bolter,” and after a gallop along the Finchley Road, and up a bye-lane into which he had been turned, had smashed the gig and deposited the Deaf’un and his pal in a clayey ditch, the former pitching on his head with no other damage than a mud-bath. The Deaf’un now hove in sight, attended by Welsh Davis (afterwards called “Birmingham”) and Ned Stockman; Crawley had the services of Harry Jones and an Irish “friend.” The colours were tied to the stakes, the ring whipped out, and amid a pelting shower of rain the men stood up for THE FIGHT.