So I turned round and said, "Whatever my
father was--he's dead. Your father's alive, Johnson, and if you
weren't a coward, you wouldn't go on bullying a fellow who hasn't got
one."
"I'm a coward, am I, Master Honourable?" said Johnson, turning
scarlet, and at the word _Honourable_ I thought he had broken my nose.
I never felt such pain in my life, but it was the only pain I felt on
the occasion; afterwards I was much too much excited, I am sorry that
I cannot remember very clearly about it, which I should have liked to
do, as it was my first fight.
There was no time to fight properly. I was obliged to do the best I
could. I made a sort of rough plan in my head, that I would cling to
Johnson as long as I was able, and hit him whenever I got a chance. I
did not quite know when he was hitting me from when I was hitting him;
but I know that I held on, and that the ground seemed to be always
hitting us both.
How long we had been struggling and cuffing and hitting (less
scientifically but more effectually than when Henrietta and I
flourished our stuffed driving gloves, with strict and constant
reference to the woodcuts in a sixpenny Boxer's Guide) before I got
slightly stunned, I do not know; when I came round I was lying in
Weston's arms, and Johnson Minor was weeping bitterly (as he believed)
over my corpse.
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