For a guide and director I can confidently recommend Mr. Al Thompson, late of Springfield, Illinois—“No, _sir_, not Massachusetts!” he will be careful to inform you—now a seasoned ornament of a Trench Mortar Battery. “We sure are one dandy outfit,” he observes modestly. “Two hundred roughnecks! I’ll make you known to a few. There’s Eddie Gillette: you seen him box last night, out on the forward deck there? Yep? Well, you certainly seen something!” We certainly had. Boxing is an ideal pastime for a large, virile, and closely packed community, for several reasons. In the first place, it requires very little space. A twelve-foot ring will do: indeed, towards the end of an exciting bout the combatants can—or must—make shift with mere elbow-room. In the second, the novice extracts quite as much exercise and excitement from the sport as the expert—possibly more. Thirdly and most important, boxing fulfils the cardinal principle of providing for the greatest good of the greatest number, because it affords far more undiluted happiness to the spectators than to the performers. Last night, for instance, when Mr. Hank Magraw (weight two hundred pounds), a gladiator mainly conspicuous for unruffled urbanity and entire ignorance of the rules of boxing, growing a trifle restive under the cumulative effect of three consecutive taps upon the point of the chin from an opponent half his size, suddenly gathered that gentleman into his arms and endeavoured to stuff him down one of those trumpet-mouthed ventilators which lead to the stokehold, the spectators voiced their appreciation by a vociferous encore. A wonderful sight these spectators are. They are banked up all around the well-deck, forming a deep pit, in the bottom of which two boxers gyrate, clash, and recoil like nutshells in a whirlpool. Tier upon tier they rise—with their long, lean, American bodies, and tense, brown, American faces—seated in concentric circles on the deck itself, perched on hatches and deck-houses and sky-lights, clinging to davits and ventilators, or hanging in clusters from the rigging—all yelling themselves hoarse. The “announcer”—one Buck Stamper—stands for the moment at the bottom of the vortex. With each of his muscular arms he encircles the shrinking figure of a competitor, and introduces the pair to the audience. “Boys,” he bellows, in a voice which must be easily audible in the surrounding transports, “one of the English officers up there has come across with—with—a ten-shilling certificate”—he releases one of his _protégés_ in order to display a pink-and-white British treasury note—“to be awarded to the winner of this bout.” There is a little polite applause. Then a stentorian voice enquires: “How much is that—in money?” There is a great roar of laughter. The announcer retires, to seek an expert financier. A British marine enlightens him, and he announces: “’Bout two dollars-and-a-half. On my right I have Ikey Zingbaum, of the Field Ambulance—”