“All right, I’ll try. If I can get a smack at his face, so as to black an eye or something, and show I’ve hit him before he does for me, I don’t care.” I will say for Corkey minimus that he had about the best pluck I ever saw in a chap. He was quite calm, and just his usual color; and when Bray tossed him for corners Corkey won; and Blanchard said I picked the right corner for him. Then he told them to fight fair, and said “Time!” I’d prayed Corkey to try and surprise Bray at the very start if he could, and have a hit at Bray’s face the moment they began. And I’m blessed if he didn’t go and do it! Bray began fiddling about jolly scientifically with his hands, and I fancy he just squinted down to see if his feet were scientific too. At the same moment Corkey buzzed round his right and let Bray have it fairly on the nose. Bray jumped and looked about as much surprised as if he’d been struck by lightning; and Blanchard said: “First blood for Corkey minimus!” I yelled--I oughtn’t to have, but I did--because to see blood dropping about on Bray’s chest was a fine sight. He sniffed and went for Corkey smiling. The smile was the beastliest part of it, for I hoped he would have got his wool off a bit and been wild. But he wasn’t, and when he began to hit, Corkey got flustered and swung about like a windmill and caught it pretty hot. Yet he jerked his head so jolly quick that he didn’t get more than about four smacks on it in the first round, though his body, which was white by nature, was pretty soon covered with red marks. He said they didn’t hurt, and I cleaned him up and blew water over him at the end of the round. His lip was bleeding like mad, but luckily inside, where his tooth had cut it; and he swallowed all the blood, so nobody knew; besides which the blood wasn’t lost. Bray flung himself down in his corner, and Fowle looked after him; and even at a solemn time like that I laughed, and so did Corkey minimus, because Fowle tried to be too clever, and spurted a lot of water out of his mouth into Bray’s eye. Then Bray told him that after the fight he’d tie him in knots and kick him, looking forward to which, of course, wrecked Fowle’s enjoyment entirely. Blanchard said “Time!” again awfully soon, and I saw Bray meant settling Corkey now, because his reputation as a fighter was at stake, and he knew Corkey hoped to get through three rounds with luck. So Bray began hitting him like hammers, and though I was about as sorry for Corkey minimus as a chap could be, nobody would have been able to help admiring the way Bray hit. It was just at the end of this round, when Corkey had been knocked down once, but got up again, that the awful rum thing with Milly Dunston happened.