Cashel Byron's Profession

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.