" In any case, Montgomery felt that of all the men concerned in
such a fight--promoters, backers, spectators--it is the actual fighter
who holds the strongest and most honourable position. His conscience
gave him no concern upon the subject. Endurance and courage are
virtues, not vices, and brutality is, at least, better than effeminacy.
There was a little tobacco-shop at the corner of the street, where
Montgomery got his bird's-eye and also his local information, for the
shopman was a garrulous soul, who knew everything about the affairs of
the district. The assistant strolled down there after tea and asked, in
a casual way, whether the tobacconist had ever heard of the Master of
Croxley.
"Heard of him! Heard of him!" the little man could hardly articulate in
his astonishment. "Why, sir, he's the first mon o' the district, an'
his name's as well known in the West Riding as the winner o' t' Derby.
But Lor,' sir,"--here he stopped and rummaged among a heap of papers.
"They are makin' a fuss about him on account o' his fight wi' Ted
Barton, and so the _Croxley Herald_ has his life an' record, an' here it
is, an' thou canst read it for thysel'"
The sheet of the paper which he held up was a lake of print around an
islet of illustration. The latter was a coarse wood-cut of a pugilist's
head and neck set in a cross-barred jersey.
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