"You’m a nice built chap, but just of that awkward weight ’twixt light and middle. In the old days I knowed some of the best bruisers you could wish to see were the same; but ’twas always terrible difficult to get ’em a job, because they was thought too light for the heavies and too heavy for the lights. But Dutch Sam in his day, and Tom Sayers in his, showed how eleven-stone men, and even ten-stone men, can hit as hard as anything with a fist. As for you, Bowden, you’ve a bit of the fighting cut--inclined to be snake-headed, though your forehead don’t slope enough. But you’re a thought old now." "Not that I want to fight any man without a cause," said David. "If there’s a reason, I’d fight anything on two legs--light or heavy--but not for fun. And I hope you men--Mattacott and Ernest Maunder--haven’t took offence where none was meant." "Certainly not," declared Mr. Maunder. "I’ll take anything afore I take offence. ’Tis my place to keep the peace, and if I don’t set an example of it, who should? Twice only in my life have I drawed my truncheon in the name of the Queen, and I hope I’ll never have no call to do it thrice. Have a drink, David; then I must be going." But Bowden declined with thanks, and the company soon separated. When he was alone, fired by the prospect of seeing his old friend once more, Reuben Shillabeer took a damp towel and, visiting each in turn, polished up the portraits of a dozen famous pugilists which hung round the walls of his bar. Where sporting prints of race-horses and fox-hunting are generally to be met with, Mr. Shillabeer had a circle of prize-fighters; and now he rubbed the yellow stains of smoke off the glasses that covered them, so that the stern, but generally open and often handsome countenances of the fighting giants looked forth from their grimy frames. Before a print of the famous ’Tipton Slasher’ Mr. Shillabeer paused, and thoughtfully stroked his battered nose. "Ah, Bill Perry," he said, "if I’d been ten year younger--" Then having extinguished two oil lamps, the old man retired and left his gallery of the great in darkness. *CHAPTER VII* *DENNYCOOMBE WOOD*