At the end of the courtyard, near the Norman archway by which they had entered, stood a boxing-booth, inside which the show was just on the point of beginning. The proprietor, a heavy-jowled ruffian in a sweater, whose board proclaimed him to be an ex-welter-weight champion of Bermondsey, had collected a crowd round his platform by inveighing, in the intervals between ringing his bell, against the sporting reputation of the black-country. At the back of the platform two of his staff, a nigger and a Hebrew, were sparring gently like kittens at play. It seemed that the reason for his resentment was his failure to get the Dulston audience to do anything but watch him and his pets. What he wanted, he said, was sport . . . just to see what the local talent was made of. ‘Sport?’ he said, ‘you don’t know the meaning of the word in this gord-forsaken ’ole. When I puts up this tent in Durham or Middlesborough or Wales, they flock into it, flock in . . . ready to take a turn with the boys and give a little exhibition. Frightened to use your fists, that’s what you are here. What the hell’s England coming to? That’s what I want to know. It’s enough to make me sick, you people! It’s enough to make me want to take down the saloon and burn the whole bleedin’ bag of tricks, damme if it isn’t, an’ the boys waiting here for a bit of sport.’ The nigger had stopped sparring and was grinning insolently at the crowd, among the younger women of which his strangeness exercised an attraction. Nobody, however, seemed inclined to enter the booth. ‘Come along, Abner,’ Alice whispered, tugging at his arm. The proprietor rang his bell again. ‘Now, for the last time,’ he said. ‘Just commencing! If you haven’t the spunk to put on the gloves yourselves, come and see a pretty exhibition of scientific boxing. And I give you my word this is the last time I ever bring my entertainment into the bleedin’ black-country!’ ‘Good job, gaffer,’ said somebody. The laughter of the crowd made the big man lose his temper. ‘Good job, is it?’ he cried. ‘I’d ask the gentleman that made that remark to come up here and say it to my face. Ever hear the name of Budge Garside? That’s mine! ’Ere, I’ll give five pounds’—he pulled out a leather bag of money and jingled it—‘I’ll give two pounds to any of you chaps that’ll stand up to me for six rounds. That’s what I think of the bloody lot of you. Men! There’s not one of you black-country chaps worth the name. All you’re fit for, as far as I can see, is to carry the babby about and ’old the missis’s ’and. Yes, sir, it’s you I’m talkin’ to!’ Everybody looked at Abner. Alice again tried to pull him away. ‘That’s right, my dear,’ said Garside, encouraged, ‘take ’im ’ome before ’e gets ’is pretty face spoiled!’ Abner shook himself free from her hand and shoved the baby into her arms.