"Well, guv'ner, I dessay I might do at a pinch," he replied; and I tried
to slap his face, but missed it, and received such a tremendous box on
the ear that I was giddy for a second or two, and when I recovered I
found him still grinning at me. I tried to hit him again and again, but
always missed; and at last, without doing me any particular damage, he
laid me flat three times running onto the very heap where I had flung
the drover, the crowd applauding madly. Dazed, hatless, and panting, and
covered with filth, I stared at him in hopeless impotence. He put out
his hand, and said, "You're all right, ain't yer, guv'ner? I 'ope I
'aven't 'urt yer! My name's Tom Sayers. If you'd a 'it me, I should 'a'
gone down like a ninepin, and I ain't so sure as I should ever 'ave got
up again."
He was to become the most famous fighting-man in England!
I wrung his hand and thanked him, and offered him a sovereign, which he
refused; and then he led me into a room in a public-house close by,
where he washed and brushed me down, and insisted on treating me to a
glass of brandy-and-water.
I have had a fondness for fighting-men ever since, and a respect for the
noble science I had never felt before.
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