"I was so pleased with his pluck," pursued the baronet tranquilly, "that I sent for him after the show and took him out to have some supper. I thought he was precious hungry from the way he wolfed his food, and when I asked him I found he'd had nothing to eat all day except a bit of dry bread for breakfast. In addition to that he had tramped about ten miles looking for a job. Hardly what one would call a good preparation for fighting a fellow twice your size." "It seems a most deserving case," remarked Lady Jocelyn sympathetically. "That's what I thought," said Tony. "I had him up to Hampstead the next day and I gave him a good try out with the gloves. I saw at once that I'd got hold of something quite out of the common. He didn't know much about the science of the game, but he was just a born boxer--one of those boys who take to fighting as naturally as they do to breathing. He seemed a decent lad too in his way--a bit rough, of course, but then you couldn't expect anything else. Anyhow the end of it was I took him on, and he has been with me ever since." "How nice!" said Lady Jocelyn. "And in what capacity does he figure in the household returns?" Tony indulged in a smile. "I always call him my assistant secretary," he said, "just to fetch old Guy. As a matter of fact Bugg is a most useful chap. There's hardly anything he can't do. When he isn't training for a fight, we use him as a sort of maid-of-all-work." "Oh, he still fights then?" "Rather," said Tony. "He has never been beaten yet. Backing Bugg is my only source of income apart from the estate. I made twelve hundred pounds out of him last year." "Dear me!" exclaimed Lady Jocelyn. "I had no idea you had a regular profession like that, Tony. What sort of people does he fight with?" "We are open to meet any one in the world up to ten stone seven. In fact there are only about four who really matter that he hasn't met. There will be one less after to-morrow." "What happens to-morrow?" "Bugg is going to fight 'Lightning Lopez' at the Cosmopolitan." "What beautiful names all these people seem to have," said Lady Jocelyn. "Who is 'Lightning Lopez'?" "He calls himself the champion welter-weight of Europe," replied Tony a little contemptuously. "He's half an American and half a Livadian. That's why Pedro has taken him up." "Pedro?" repeated Lady Jocelyn. "Do you mean King Pedro?" Tony nodded. "Yes, Lopez is being backed by royalty or rather ex-royalty. We hope to have five hundred of the best out of His Majesty by to-morrow night." "Are you a friend of Pedro's?" asked Lady Jocelyn. "Oh, hardly that," said Tony. "He belongs to the Cosmo, you know, and I often meet him at races and first nights." Lady Jocelyn paused for a moment. "I remember him very well as a little boy at Portriga before the revolution," she said. "What has he grown up like?"