He was many inches shorter than
I, and did not look at all the Hercules he was.
He told me I was the strongest built man for a youngster that he had
ever seen, barring that I was "rather leggy." I do not know if he was
sincere or not, but no possible compliment could have pleased me more.
Such is the vanity of youth.
And here, although it savors somewhat of vaingloriousness, I cannot
resist the temptation of relating another adventure of the same kind,
but in which I showed to greater advantage.
It was on a boxing-day (oddly enough), and I was returning with Lintot
and one of his boys from a walk in the Highgate Fields. As we plodded our
dirty way homeward through the Caledonian Road we were stopped by a
crowd outside a public-house. A gigantic drayman (they always seem
bigger than they really are) was squaring up to a poor drunken lout of a
navvy not half his size, who had been put up to fight him, and who was
quite incapable of even an attempt it self-defence; he could scarcely
lift his arms, I thought at first it was only horse-play; and as little
Joe Lintot wanted to see, I put him up on my shoulder, just as the
drayman, who had been drinking, but was not drunk, and had a most
fiendishly brutal face, struck the poor tipsy wretch with all his might
between the eyes, and felled him (it was like pole-axing a bullock), to
the delight of the crowd.
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