Corkey minimus saw Milly once or twice before the fight, and he said he couldn’t make out whether she was going mad or what. One minute she wanted him to fight, the next she implored him not to; one minute she hoped he would mutilate Bray to pieces, the next she blubbed and prayed him if ever he had any liking for her to give Bray “best.” She said she kept dreaming of him brought back stark and stiff; and then, when he began to think she meant it, she called him her “knight” and her “hero” and her “King Arthur” and other frightful rot, and actually wanted him to wear one of her Sunday gloves under his shirt at the time of fighting! Corkey minimus said he very likely wouldn’t wear a shirt; and then she thought he might hang it--I mean the glove--round his neck by a bit of string! “Blessed if I shall ever feel quite the same to her after this,” said Corkey. “It seems rather rough to get broken up for life to please a skimpy girl,” I said. Then he burst out as red in the face as an apple, and told me he would not hear a word against Milly, so I dried up. There were three days before the fight, and Corkey minimus trained for it, and gave away his pudding at dinner in exchange for the meat of the chaps who sat next to him. But you can’t get your muscle up in a day or two like that, and it only made him awfully thirsty. The day came at last, and I may as well go on to the fight itself. The First were having a big match on our own ground, so nobody paid any attention to us, and we arranged a game that should have Corkey, Bray, and me on the same side. Then, when our chaps were in, we three sneaked away into the plantations, behind some holly-trees and a woodstack. Bray arranged all the preliminaries as cheerful as a bird, and Blanchard said they were right. They marked out a ring and ran a string round and arranged corners for the seconds; and I saw that the obscene Fowle had towels and bottles of water and a basin--all, of course, for Bray between the rounds. Corkey minimus was rather waxy with me for not bringing the same for him; but I’d brought a sponge, which I know is a thing a second chucks up in the air when his man is done for; and I explained and showed it to Corkey; and he thanked me and said he supposed that was about the only thing he should want. Blanchard said the rounds were to be two minutes long each, and Bray grumbled because they ought by rights to be three. But Blanchard told him to shut up and begin. When we saw Bray take his shirt off I told Corkey he ought to, and he did. Then Blanchard laughed and said: “By gum! they peel rather different!” Bray was like a barrel, with muscles a lot bigger than hen’s eggs on his arms. Corkey minimus seemed to be all ribs somehow, with arms about as lean as rulers. I told him to keep moving about and try and puff Bray a bit if he had time, and he said: