I'll back you!" One or two of the fellows pulled off my coat--my poor seedy coat.

I remember even then feeling ashamed of the worn flannel shirt, out at elbows, that was below it, and which I had little expected any one that evening to see.
"Will you have your waistcoat off ?" said Daly.
"No," replied I.
"Better," said Flanagan, "and your collar too." This was awful! My collar was a paper one, and pinned on to the shirt in two places! "No!" I cried, in desperation at these officious offers; "let me alone, please." "Oh, all serene! But he's got the pull of you." Perhaps if I had had a clean linen shirt on, with studs down the front, I might have been more tractable in the matter of peeling.
It had by this time gradually dawned on me that I was in for a fight, and that there was no getting out of it.

My adversary was bigger than I was, and evidently far more at home with the customs of the prize-ring.
I would fain have escaped, but what could I do?
Meanwhile the table was hurriedly pushed into a corner of the room and the chairs piled up in a heap.
"Now then!" cried the Field-Marshal, who, in some miraculous manner, now appeared as backer to the fellow with whom a few minutes ago he had been quarrelling--"now then, aren't you ready there ?" "Yes," said Flanagan, rolling up my shirt-sleeves; "all ready! Now then, old man, straight out from the shoulder, you know.

Keep your toes straight, and guard forward.

Now then--there!" I was in for it then; and, being in for it, the only thing was to go through with it, and that I determined to do.
My adversary advanced towards me, half prancing, with his hands high, his elbows out, his face red, and his straw jerking about like a steam- engine.