All the tip top people now patronize the ring, and I do so in my small way too.

I am on good terms with all the principal prize fighters, and put on the gloves with one or other of them pretty nearly every day.

I have taken courses of lessons regularly from four or five of them, and I can tell you that I can hold my own with most of the Corinthians.

It is a grand sport, and I don't know how I should get on without it; after the hard exercise I was accustomed to down in the country, it keeps one's muscles in splendid order, and I can tell you that if one happens to get into a fight in the streets, it is no light thing to be able to polish off an antagonist in a round or two without getting a mark on your face that would keep you a prisoner in your room for a week or more." "Yes, I should like very much to take lessons too, Dick; it is one of the things that I have always wished to do.

I suppose one can do it of an evening, or any time you like ?" "Yes, any hour suits those fellows.