Cashel Byrons Profession | Page 9

account of a real fight (meaning, apparently, one between
professional pugilists) which he had seen in England. He went on to

describe how he had himself knocked down a master with one blow
when running away from school. Skene received this sceptically, and
cross-examined the narrator as to the manner and effect of the blow,
with the result of convincing himself that the story was true. At the end
of a quarter of an hour the lad had commended himself so favorably by
his conversation that the champion took him into the gymnasium,
weighed him, measured him, and finally handed him a pair of boxing
gloves and invited him to show what he was made of. The youth,
though impressed by the prize-fighter's attitude with a hopeless sense of
the impossibility of reaching him, rushed boldly at him several times,
knocking his face on each occasion against Skene's left fist, which
seemed to be ubiquitous, and to have the property of imparting the
consistency of iron to padded leather. At last the novice directed a
frantic assault at the champion's nose, rising on his toes in his
excitement as he did so. Skene struck up the blow with his right arm,
and the impetuous youth spun and stumbled away until he fell supine in
a corner, rapping his head smartly on the floor at the same time. He
rose with unabated cheerfulness and offered to continue the combat;
but Skene declined any further exercise just then, and, much pleased
with his novice's game, promised to give him a scientific education and
make a man of him.
The champion now sent for his wife, whom he revered as a
preeminently sensible and well-mannered woman. The newcomer
could see in her only a ridiculous dancing-mistress; but he treated her
with great deference, and thereby improved the favorable opinion
which Skene had already formed of him. He related to her how, after
running away from school, he had made his way to Liverpool, gone to
the docks, and contrived to hide himself on board a ship bound for
Australia. Also how he had suffered severely from hunger and thirst
before he discovered himself; and how, notwithstanding his unpopular
position as stowaway, he had been fairly treated as soon as he had
shown that he was willing to work. And in proof that he was still
willing, and had profited by his maritime experience, he offered to
sweep the floor of the gymnasium then and there. This proposal
convinced the Skenes, who had listened to his story like children
listening to a fairy tale, that he was not too much of a gentleman to do

rough work, and it was presently arranged that he should thenceforth
board and lodge with them, have five shillings a week for
pocket-money, and be man-of-all-work, servant, gymnasium- attendant,
clerk, and apprentice to the ex-champion of England and the colonies.
He soon found his bargain no easy one. The gymnasium was open from
nine in the morning until eleven at night, and the athletic gentlemen
who came there not only ordered him about without ceremony, but
varied the monotony of being set at naught by the invincible Skene by
practising what he taught them on the person of his apprentice, whom
they pounded with great relish, and threw backwards, forwards, and
over their shoulders as though he had been but a senseless effigy,
provided for that purpose. Meanwhile the champion looked on and
laughed, being too lazy to redeem his promise of teaching the novice to
defend himself. The latter, however, watched the lessons which he saw
daily given to others, and, before the end of a month, he so completely
turned the tables on the amateur pugilists of Melbourne that Skene one
day took occasion to remark that he was growing uncommon clever,
but that gentlemen liked to be played easy with, and that he should be
careful not to knock them about too much. Besides these bodily
exertions, he had to keep account of gloves and foils sold and bought,
and of the fees due both to Mr. and Mrs. Skene. This was the most
irksome part of his duty; for he wrote a large, schoolboy hand, and was
not quick at figures. When he at last began to assist his master in giving
lessons the accounts had fallen into arrear, and Mrs. Skene had to
resume her former care of them; a circumstance which gratified her
husband, who regarded it as a fresh triumph of her superior intelligence.
Then a Chinaman was engaged to do the more menial work of the
establishment. "Skene's novice," as he was now generally called, was
elevated to the rank of assistant professor to the champion, and became
a person of some consequence in the gymnasium.
He had been there more than nine