of the round, and I went back to my corner. Jim Blake was seconding me.
'What's this, Jim?' I says, 'is the man mad, or what?' 'Why,' he says,
'he's left-handed, that's what's the matter. Get on top of him.' 'Get
on top of him? I says. 'My Golly, I'll get on top of the roof if he's
going to hit me another of those.' But I kept on, and got close to him,
and he couldn't get in another of them, and he give in after the
seventh round."

"What competition was that?" asked Sheen.

Mr Bevan laughed. "It was a twenty-round contest, sir, for seven-fifty
aside and the Light Weight Championship of the World."

Sheen looked at him in astonishment. He had always imagined
professional pugilists to be bullet-headed and beetle-browed to a man.
He was not prepared for one of Mr Joe Bevan's description. For all the
marks of his profession that he bore on his face, in the shape of lumps
and scars, he might have been a curate. His face looked tough, and his
eyes harboured always a curiously alert, questioning expression, as if
he were perpetually "sizing up" the person he was addressing. But
otherwise he was like other men. He seemed also to have a pretty taste
in Literature. This, combined with his strong and capable air,
attracted Sheen. Usually he was shy and ill at ease with strangers. Joe
Bevan he felt he had known all his life.

"Do you still fight?" he asked.

"No," said Mr Bevan, "I gave it up. A man finds he's getting on, as the
saying is, and it don't do to keep at it too long. I teach and I train,
but I don't fight now."