ring who might he hired for sparring purposes
at a shilling an hour, and who stood like cab-
horses on a stand; hangers-on of the pugilists
who were waiting patiently in the hope that
stakes would be drawn or deposits made, and
that eleemosynary stimulants would be the
conditions upon which their services as witnesses
or friends would be required; dissipated-looking
men whose abstract love for pugilism had
brought them here to feast their eyes upon the
heroes of their worship; thieves and card-
sharpers on the look-out for prey; and over all
an indescribable air of worthless, dissolute
raffishness; such was the mob in waiting
outside The Sleepless office.  For, two mighty
combats had been fought in the preceding week;
and the principals and seconds in each were, as
it was well known, expected to confer with the
editor, and talk over their future.  On the
previous Monday the Welsh mammoth, O'Boldwin,
had beaten Augustus Oils, after a protracted
fight, for one hundred pounds, in which,
I have since read, the latter was "defeated but
not disgraced;" and on the very day before our
interview those well-known heroes, Raven and
Rile, had fought for three hours and a half, for
four hundred pounds, when, to the intense
disgust of their backers and admirers, "both
men got very weak, and showed symptoms of
the cold shivers setting in," so it was agreed to
draw the stakes, from the physical impossibility
of either man striking a finishing blow to
make him winner.  These champions and
their friends were the attractions of the day,
and a knock at the door announced the
arrival of the gallant Rile's second, Mr.
Black Kicks.  This gentleman's patience had
been sorely tried by the disappointment of
yesterday, and his expressions of disgust at the
untoward ending of "wot oughter been a finish
one way or the other," were uttered with much
feeling and sincerity.  "He'd rather ha' lost
his money, he would indeed, than 'ave a fight
end nohow, as yer may say.  No, he couldn't
say one was more blown than another; they
wos both blown, and that's truth.  Rile gets
wonderful slow arter he's been fightin' about
two hours—wonderful slow, indeed; while
Raven's never bin able to finish his man since
he fought Cuss, and is, besides, allers on the
slip, which ain't what Mr. Kicks calls fightin'
—it ain't indeed."  Kicks is a bullet-headed
black-browed young fellow, whose civility to the
editor reminded one somehow of veneer.  A
few more genial remarks on the sport of the
day before, and he retires, after handing in a
slip of written paper, which is carefully filed.
To him succeeds a podgy pale-faced man of
middle age, who can scarcely speak from cold,
and whose words hiss out like steam from a tea-
kettle.  This is the veteran Tommy Stalker,
of whom I hear that his fighting weight twenty
years ago was nine stone four pounds, and
whose arm—a great point this—now measures
fifteen inches round.  Stalker's errand is pacific,
and his round full-moon face smiling.  "It is a
little benefit I'm thinkin' of takin', and if you'd
be kind enough to give me a word in to-morrow's
paper, I thought you might like to see this."
"This" is a flaming red bill of the Fitzroy
Music Hall, and sets forth the allurements
of Stalker's night.  The hero himself
will, by particular desire, give his Celebrated
Grecian delineations—and very curious must
that corpulent figure look in a skin-tight dress.
The term "Grecian" has liberal interpretation
at Stalker's hands, for the delineations range
from Hercules and the Nemæan Lion, to
Romulus and Remus.

Long before I have settled how this  "well-
known scientific fighter" contrives to represent
twins in his own fat person a problem I have
yet to solve—he retires with many smiles, and is
succeeded by Rat Bangem, affectionately spoken
of as "ould Rat," and Beau Cuss.  Bangem, a
well-worn veteran, who is almost without front
teeth, and whose chief peculiarity is that he
always seems to be talking with his mouth full,
wears a tasteful breast-pin, in which the
personal pronoun  "My"  in large letters of gold
surmounts a counterfeit human eye, and so
symbolises its owner's acuteness.  He is a civil-
spoken fellow, who has retired from the ring,
and now keeps a well-known tavern.  Cuss is a
candidate for the championship of England,
being pledged to fight Zebedee Spice next
May, for two hundred pounds and the belt.
Both Rat and he are very full of the contest
of last Monday.  O'Boldwin was originally
a pupil of Bangem's, who picked him up in
the streets, and, fascinated by his size and
promise, gave him the rudiments of his fistic
education.  Another publican and ex-pugilist,
David Garden, was O'Boldwin's second at the
fight he won last Monday; but Bangem does
not mind this, and talks with great feeling of old
times, before O'Boldwin was anything but physically
great.  Cuss is a dark-complexioned man of
middle height, and apparently of immense
strength.  A deep broad chest, which seems
almost bursting through the rough-napped
black cutaway coat and waistcoat buttoned over
it, a short neck, lips which move, when their
owner speaks or laughs, so as to show their
inner half, and to thus intensify the animal
expression of the face, a hand and arm which look
fit to fell a bullock, and sturdy legs, which seem
as if a bullock's strength could not shake
them, make Cuss a formidable competitor for
the honours of the ring.  His conversation is
rather saturnine than animated, and turns chiefly
upon the amount of deposit-money he and Spice
have yet to pay.  I gather that whereas five
pounds were now paid by each man every Friday,
the time approaches when the weekly instalment
must be doubled.  Of the drawn battle yesterday
between Raven and Rile, it is Mr. Cuss's opinion
"both men had a chance to win;"  while his
contempt for a combatant who admitted after
a battle that he wasn't  "so much hurt as he
thought he was," is too deep for words, and
finds vent in expectoration.  The point is mooted
whether, in the event of Cuss winning the belt,
he will be able to keep it afterwards, against