effect of the blow, with the result of convincing himself that the
story was true. At the end of a quarter of an hour the lad had
commended himself so favorably by his conversation that the champion
took him into the gymnasium, weighed him, measured him, and finally
handed him a pair of boxing gloves and invited him to show what he
was made of. The youth, though impressed by the prize-fighter's
attitude with a hopeless sense of the impossibility of reaching him,
rushed boldly at him several times, knocking his face on each
occasion against Skene's left fist, which seemed to be ubiquitous,
and to have the property of imparting the consistency of iron to
padded leather. At last the novice directed a frantic assault at the
champion's nose, rising on his toes in his excitement as he did so.
Skene struck up the blow with his right arm, and the impetuous youth
spun and stumbled away until he fell supine in a corner, rapping his
head smartly on the floor at the same time. He rose with unabated
cheerfulness and offered to continue the combat; but Skene declined
any further exercise just then, and, much pleased with his novice's
game, promised to give him a scientific education and make a man of
him.

The champion now sent for his wife, whom he revered as a
preeminently sensible and well-mannered woman. The newcomer could
see in her only a ridiculous dancing-mistress; but he treated her
with great deference, and thereby improved the favorable opinion
which Skene had already formed of him. He related to her how, after
running away from school, he had made his way to Liverpool, gone to
the docks, and contrived to hide himself on board a ship bound for
Australia. Also how he had suffered severely from hunger and thirst
before he discovered himself; and how, notwithstanding his unpopular
position as stowaway, he had been fairly treated as soon as he had