greatly inferior in number, possessed considerable advantage, from long
habit in street-rows and boxing encounters. As for myself, I had the
good fortune to be pitted against a very pursy and unwieldy Frenchman,
who sacre'd to admiration, but never put in a single blow at me; while,
therefore, I amused myself practising what old Cribb called "the one,
two," upon his fat carcase, I had abundant time and opportunity to watch
all that was doing about me, and truly a more ludicrous affair I never
beheld. Imagine about fifteen or sixteen young Englishmen, most of them
powerful, athletic fellows, driving an indiscriminate mob of about five
times their number before them, who, with courage enough to resist, were
yet so totally ignorant of the boxing art, that they retreated,
pell-mell, before the battering phalanx of their sturdy opponents--the
most ludicrous figure of all being Mr. O'Leary himself, who, standing
upon the table, laid about him with a brass lustre that he had unstrung,
and did considerable mischief with this novel instrument of warfare,
crying out the entire time, "murder every mother's son of them," "give
them another taste of Waterloo." Just as he had uttered the last
patriotic sentiment, he received a slight admonition from behind, by the
point of a gen d'arme's sword, which made him leap from the table with
the alacrity of a harlequin, and come plump down among the thickest of
the fray. My attention was now directed elsewhere, for above all the
din and "tapage" of the encounter I could plainly hear the row-dow-dow
of the drums, and the measured tread of troops approaching, and at once
guessed that a reinforcement of the gen d'armerie were coming up.
Behind me there was a large window, with a heavy scarlet curtain before
it; my resolution was at once taken, I floored my antagonist, whom I had
till now treated with the most merciful forbearance, and immediately
sprung behind the curtain. A second's consideration showed that in the
search that must ensue this would afford no refuge, so I at once opened
the sash, and endeavoured to ascertain at what height I was above the