“But you’re all right,” he added, as they walked aside. “Your work keeps you in good condition. Not quite so quick as you would ha’ been if you’d been sparrin’ every evening, o’course. But quick enough for your job, I expect.” And again Johnny saw the cunning twinkle. It was about closing time, and when Johnny had changed his clothes, he found the sergeant leaving also. He thanked him and bade him good-night. “Good-night, May,” the sergeant called, and turned into the street. But he swung back along the footpath after Johnny, and asked, “Is it to-morrow?” “What, sergeant?” “Oh, I ain’t a sergeant—I’m a stranger. There’s a sergeant goes to that moral establishment p’raps,” with a nod at the Institute, “but he behaves strictly proper. I’m just a chap out in the street that would like to see the fight, that’s all. When is it?” “I don’t quite know that myself,” Johnny answered. “Oh—like that, is it? Hum.” The sergeant was thoughtful for a moment—perhaps incredulous. Then he said, “Well, can’t be helped, I suppose. Anyway, keep your left goin’ strong, but don’t lead quite so reckless, with your head up an’ no guard. You’re good enough. An’ the bigger he is, the more to hit!” XXIX. MR. BUTSON was perhaps a shade relieved when he returned home that night and found all quiet, and Johnny in bed. He had half expected that his inopportune return might have caused trouble. But the night after, as he came from the railway station, a little earlier than usual, Johnny stopped him in the street. “I want to speak to you,” he said. “Just come round by the dock wall.” His manner was quiet and businesslike, but Mr. Butson wondered. “Why?” he asked. “Can’t you tell me here?” “No, I can’t. There are too many people about. It’s money in your pocket if you come.” Mr. Butson went. What it meant he could not imagine, but Johnny usually told the truth, and he said it would be money in his pocket—a desirable disposition of the article. The dock wall was just round a corner. A tall, raking wall at one side of a sparsely lit road that was empty at night, and a lower wall at the other; the road reached by a flight of steps rising from the street, and a gateway in the low wall. “Well, what is it now?” Mr. Butson asked, suspiciously, as Johnny stopped under a gas-lamp and looked right and left along the deserted road. “Only just this,” Johnny replied, with simple distinctness. “You wanted mother to give you my money every week, though in fact she’s been letting me keep it. Well, here’s my last week’s money”—he shook it in his hand—“and I’ll give it you if you’ll stand up here and fight me.” “What? Fight you? You?” Mr. Butson laughed; but he felt a secret uneasiness. “Yes, me. You’d rather fight a woman, no doubt, or a lame girl. But I’m going to give you a change, and make you fight me—here.” Johnny flung his jacket on the ground and his hat on it.