passengers used to laugh when Boy Jim shouted at them, but if they
could have read his big, half-set limbs and his loose shoulders
aright, they would have looked a little harder at him, perhaps, and
given him back his cheer.

Boy Jim had never known a father or a mother, and his whole life had
been spent with his uncle, Champion Harrison. Harrison was the
Friar's Oak blacksmith, and he had his nickname because he fought
Tom Johnson when he held the English belt, and would most certainly
have beaten him had the Bedfordshire magistrates not appeared to
break up the fight. For years there was no such glutton to take
punishment and no more finishing hitter than Harrison, though he was
always, as I understand, a slow one upon his feet. At last, in a
fight with Black Baruk the Jew, he finished the battle with such a
lashing hit that he not only knocked his opponent over the inner
ropes, but he left him betwixt life and death for long three weeks.
During all this time Harrison lived half demented, expecting every
hour to feel the hand of a Bow Street runner upon his collar, and to
be tried for his life. This experience, with the prayers of his
wife, made him forswear the ring for ever, and carry his great
muscles into the one trade in which they seemed to give him an
advantage. There was a good business to be done at Friar's Oak from
the passing traffic and the Sussex farmers, so that he soon became
the richest of the villagers; and he came to church on a Sunday with
his wife and his nephew, looking as respectable a family man as one
would wish to see.

He was not a tall man, not more than five feet seven inches, and it
was often said that if he had had an extra inch of reach he would
have been a match for Jackson or Belcher at their best. His chest